New York Philharmonic, led by its music director and preeminent conductor
Lorin Maazel, is staging at China's egg-shaped National Center for the
Performing Arts on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Tickets of the two concerts had been sold out about a month ago, the center's
ticket office told Xinhua Sunday.
Chinese could be important defenders of classical music since they are
increasingly embracing other cultures, Sunday's Beijing News quoted Maazel as
saying.
"It could very well be that one of the most important defendersof classical
music will be found in the country of China," said the 78-year-old conductor.
Chinese have shown their passion and very high sense of aesthetics, which
makes the country an ideal spawning ground for burgeoning interest in classical
music, he said.
Six Chinese faces are seen among the orchestra, including associate conductor
Zhang Xuan and principal oboist Wang Liang.
Maazel, impressed by the concert hall, was quoted as saying the grand theatre
is the most "breathtaking" he has even been.
The two concerts in Beijing are part of the orchestra's Asia tour. It has
performed at Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
After Beijing concerts, the Philharmonic will leave for Pyongyang, capital of
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the first cultural exchange
event to build mutual trust and understanding between the DPRK and the United
States.
Maazel refused to comment on the DPRK tour at Saturday's press conference.
