Music in the Summer Air, an annual festival featuring cross-genre music in Shanghai, opened with an online concert on July 20.

This year's edition of the festival, which was originally slated to be a fully online event, will now feature online and offline performances till July 30. The four concerts held in the Shanghai Symphony Hall will be capped at 50 percent the maximum capacity, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra announced on Friday.

Themed "Beginning", MISA 2022 has been extended to cities other than Shanghai for the first time. Internationally renowned orchestras from home and abroad, such as the New York Philharmonic, the British Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra are showcasing their best performances at MISA online.

A festival centered on music education, MISA will feature a group of young musical talents this year. Jin Yukuang, a young conductor born in 2000, will present a concert with his Neo Classica Orchestra on July 22. The program also includes a young composers workshop on July 26 and a students orchestra performance on July 29.

MISA was founded by Yu Long, the music director of the SSO, in 2010. Despite the recurring COVID outbreaks, the festival has taken place uninterrupted for 13 years.

Du Zixuan contributed to this story.