East is to meet West at the concert hall this concern season, as the China Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) is revving up to present both old Western compositions and contemporary Chinese classical works.

Their mission is twofold: promote contemporary Chinese music to a local audience that hasn't yet developed a passion for the classic music of their homeland and prove that China can go toe-to-toe with orchestras from abroad when performing Western compositions.

CPO will kick off its 07/08 season at Poly Theater tonight with Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto and Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's commissioned symphony Kunlun. Yu Long, artistic director and chief conductor of CPO, will take the baton, and Korean pianist Kun Woo Paik will tickle the ivories as well as audiences' fancies.

The opening concert's program is intended to highlight the themes of the year.

Western maestros, such as Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Haydn, Chopin and Strauss, have won sizeable fan bases in China. But despite contemporary classic music's rising prominence worldwide, it has up until now largely fallen on deaf ears at home.

To drum up enthusiasm about contemporary Chinese music among locals and to showcase the development of Chinese music over the past 20 years, CPO will play Guo Wenjing's symphony Shu Dao Nan (Hard Are the Ways of Sichuan), bamboo flute concerto Chou Kong Shan (Sorrowful, Desolate Mountain), Tan Dun's Secret Land for Orchestra and 12 Violoncelli, Tang Jianping's Suite of Jing Wei and Jin Xiang's opera The Prairie.

"All these composers have won critical acclaim abroad, and these works have been played by many foreign orchestras. CPO will play more of these works in the following seasons to let more Chinese people know that we don't just have the Yellow River Cantata, the violin concerto Butterfly Lovers or Ode to the Red Flag. Chinese music has been at the forefront of the global classic music scene," says Yu.

In addition to performing existing Chinese music, CPO has commissioned Ye Xiaogang and Guo Wenjing to compose new works. Ye's symphony Kunlun and Guo's poem Jiangshan Ruci Duojiao will premiere this season.

Borrowing tunes from the folk music of Northwest China's Qinghai Province - home of the Kunlun Mountains - Ye's three-movement Kunlun features melodies that would appeal to ordinary listeners.

The composer says he is pleased with the progress of rehearsals.

"It is even better than what I had expected," he says. "The strings sound very warm, and I myself was deeply touched. The orchestra members are quick to figure out what I want. I have collaborated with most Chinese orchestras, and CPO is the best one, with the highest degree of professionalism."

Ye said that when he was commissioned to create new compositions, Yu gave him two choices of subject matter; one was Kunlun, and the other was poet Qu Yuan's Nine Songs. Ye believes Nine Songs could make use of many of the latest composing techniques. When setting Kunlun to music, he plans to create a symphony for the masses, using simple language and popular folk tunes.

"It's challenging to compose a symphony that ordinary people would appreciate. I hope I have done a good job," he says.

The coming season will also feature the works of a number of Chinese musicians and instrumentalists, such as conductors Lu Jia, Zhang Yi and Wang Jin, pianists Lang Lang and Xu Zhong, violinists Xue Wei, Chai Liang, Zeng Cheng, Wen Wei and Xie Nan, cellist Sun Xiaoqi, and mezzo-soprano Liang Ning, Cao Zheng and soprano Rao Lan.

In addition to contemporary Chinese music and a classic Western repertoire, CPO would play in step with the trend of world contemporary music. It plans to perform Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki's Symphony No 8, which was commissioned by Beijing Music Festival, on October 24. Russian cellist Nina Kotova will debut a cello concerto that she commissioned British composer Michael Nyman to write.

In addition to the 27 concerts in Beijing and two New Year's concerts in Shenzhen, CPO and prominent Chinese pianist Lang Lang will set out a world tour in May of 2008.

Editor: Carolyn