Notes from Verbier

The Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra will tour China from Feb 28 to March 4. The orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Verbier Festival, the classical music festival founded in the idyllic mountain village of Verbier, Switzerland, in 1994. It is now one of the most innovative classical music festivals worldwide. Among the young artists who have developed international reputations at Verbier are Chinese pianists Lang Lang, Yuja Wang and Li Yundi. The leading soloist on the China tour is Russian violinist Kirill Troussov. The program includes Mozart's Divertimento, Eight Seasons, Vivaldi's violin concerto The Four Seasons and Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. By contrasting European baroque music with Argentinian tango, the concerts will display a unique and rich interpretation of the "seasons".

Beijing: 7:30 pm Feb 28. National Center for the Performing Arts. 010-6655-0000.

Shanghai : 7:30 pm March 1. Shanghai Concert Hall. 021-6217-2426.

Guangzhou: 7:30 pm March 2. Xinghai Concert Hall. 400-610-3721.

Shenzhen: 7:30 pm March 3. Shenzhen Concert Hall. 400-610-3721.

- Chen Jie

Folk music celebrated

Guangdong Chinese Orchestra presents folk music in the Lingnan style at a concert in Guangzhou on Feb 22. It will include such famous Cantonese folk songs as Autumn Moon Over the Calm Lake and Rainy Day. The concert was well received at its debut in September at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. To celebrate the coming of spring, the orchestra has invited artists from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to perform lively music with traditional Uygur musical instruments, such as the hand-drum.

8 pm, Feb 22. Symphony Hall, Xinghai Concert Hall, 33 Qingbo Lu, Ersha Island, Yuexiu district, Guangzhou. 020-8735-2222.

- Xu Jingxi

Existential love revealed

A play adapted from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard's work Either/Or, The Seducer's Diary will be staged at Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center. The production will be in English and is a cabaret show that combines storytelling with live music and dance. It is a joint creation by Odense Teater and No Domain Theater, respectively from Denmark and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, with music created and presented by the Tiger Lilies, a "cult cabaret trio" from London. The story is set in Shanghai in the 1930s. Ten actors from Denmark and Shanghai will tell the story about a man's seduction of a young woman, and how he takes great pleasure in the planning and his triumph. Yet when he succeeds in engaging the woman, he becomes dissatisfied and drives her to break off the marriage.

7:30 pm, Feb 21-Mar 3. Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, 3F, 288 Anfu Road Shanghai. 021-6473-0123.

- Zhang Kun