Tan Lihua will conduct the Beijing Symphony Orchestra during the performance. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Huang, as maestro Gustav Kuhn's assistant conductor, conducted Richard Wagner's last opera, Parsifal, in 2013. The piece is a coproduction of the Beijing Music and Salzburg Easter festivals.

Huang joined the Kunming orchestra in 2016. He says its goal is to promote original pieces with Yunnan style, since the province is known for its ethnic diversity.

Conductor Yang Yang, as the artistic director and president conductor of the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, will lead the ensemble to perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme and Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird. Cellist Wang Jian will join the performance.

Yang first performed as a conductor at the BMF in collaboration with Spanish guitarist Josep Henriquez and the China Conservatory of Music's orchestra as a student of the conservatory in 1998.

"It was a rare opportunity for a young student to perform onstage and with world-class musicians," Yang recalls.

"It was unforgettable."

The conductor, who was born into a musical family and enrolled in the Central Conservatory of Music's affiliated middle school at age 12, has performed at the BMF many times over the past two decades.

He credits the BMF for not only displaying world-class orchestras and musicians but also for offering young conductors a platform.

Other highlights will include the China Philharmonic Orchestra performing Richard Wagner's Tannhauser Overture and Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, Op 30 under Xia Xiaotang's baton.

The Beijing Symphony Orchestra will play Georges Bizet's Prelude to Carmen and Johannes Brahms's Hungarian Dance, No 5 conducted by Tan Lihua.

And the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will present Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1 in G Minor, Op 26 and the violin concerto, Butterfly Lovers, by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

If you go

10 am-3 pm, 5 pm-10 pm, Oct 14. Poly Theater, 14 Dongzhimen Nandajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6506-5343.