In Thursday’s (8/1) Detroit Free Press, Mark Stryker writes about the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming performance at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, during the Beijing Modern Music Festival. The September 22 concert will feature “a world premiere and two U.S. premieres by Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, founder of the 11-year-old Beijing festival and vice president of the Central Conservatory of Music, the leading music school in China. Yongyan Hu, a Chinese-born conductor, will lead the DSO…. The trip represents a small first step toward tapping into the highly coveted Chinese market and its insatiable appetite for Western classical music. DSO executive president Paul Hogle said the concert opens the door to conversations with Central Conservatory officials about forging an educational partnership with the DSO…. He cautioned that the relationship is still in its earliest stages, but that the potential long-range benefits for the DSO are substantial, from performance opportunities to expanding the worldwide market for its high-definition webcasts from Orchestra Hall…. The New York concert is designed to raise the international profile of the Beijing Modern Music Festival,” a weeklong annual event held in May, and is sponsored by various agencies of the Chinese government.

Composer Ye Xiaogang, founder of the Beijing Modern Music Festival. Photo by CFP

Posted August 2, 2013