20th Macau International Music Festival to take place from 6 October to 5 November 2006

The Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau SAR Government will be holding the 20th Macau International Music Festival (MIMF) from 6 October to 5 November 2006.

The 20th anniversary of the MIMF is celebrated with a touch of romanticism. Jazz, classical, electronica, Chinese folk-pop, rock and fado will fill Macau's autumn nights with magic. The eclectic programme of 28 performances promises to delight Macau audiences, accustomed to the festival's annual offering of some of the best music from all over the world.

The Chinese prodigy Lang Lang will blow out the first of twenty candles from the piano bench at the Macau Cultural Centre, playing concertos by the melodic Chopin and the extravagant Tchaikovsky. The Macau Orchestra joins the festivities under the leadership of two of the region's most important conductors, Pang Ka Pang and En Shao. The lyric expression continues on the same stage with an ambitious concert by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne on 7 October, marking the return of large ensembles to the MIMF stage.

Amid the magical ambience of the Mount Fortress venue, the popular French pianist Richard Clayderman will charm the public with his romantic classics and later courts the ladies of Feng Huang, who return his affection with Chinese tradition.

Following the tryst between Europe and China in the nostalgic Mount Fortress, one of this year's preferred venues, New York's Shanghai Quartet diversifies the exchange with a universal encounter between the music of East and West. The performance will warm another of Macau's historical settings, the Dom Pedro V Theatre (10 October), the very same stage to which the legendary voice of Carlos do Carmo returns to echo the fado tradition. For two incredible nights the singer who knows better than anyone how to rekindle the Portuguese spirit will light the fuse of saudade in the hearts of Macau's multicultural audience.

The electronics of Sakamoto in pure form

The more modern sounds of electronica are added to the classics of the MIMF. It is with the music of Insen that Ryuichi Sakamoto makes his Macau debut on 18 October. He is joined by another musical scientist, the young German Alva Noto, and they fill the Mount Fortress with the celestial sounds of their lounge laboratory.

Seven soloists, three orchestras and four choirs will make Nam Van Lake overflow with joy on 20 October. Musicians from Macau, the Mainland and Taiwan will shake the entire city with the grandeur of Gustav Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand", written near the turn of the last century.

The Macau Chinese Orchestra holds Hong Kong's Canto pop star Paula Tsui in its arms for three nights at the Cultural Centre (22, 23 and 24 October), in a concert that guarantees a heady dose of Chinese nostalgia. The Orchestra sends five of their best musicians back to the stage on 19 October.

The curtains of the MIMF open on the festive Divertimento Berlin as well, whose musicians hail from the renowned Berlin Philharmonic and Berlin Opera orchestras. Not excluded from the celebration are the Batavia Madrigal Singers, from Indonesia, who perform alone on 24 October and later join forces with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa to honour another celebration, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-2006).

A happy ending with Guys and Dolls

Jazz enters among the ranks of the MIMF genres with the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, liberating that intense creative fervour so often consigned to the privacy of the musician's studio. This musical intimacy is shared on 26 October at the Mount Fortress, which two days later will host four Chinese bands who revive their regional traditions in the pop and rock idioms of today.

Chamber music ventures away from the classics of the MIMF in the concert of the Vienna Symphony Virtuosi (30 October). The Austrian ensemble offers the poetry of Johann Strauss, Mozart and Hummel on the Dom Pedro V Theatre stage, only to charm audiences in the second half with the jazz smooth talk of Cole Porter and Claude Bolling.

The MIMF closes with one of the greatest of all Broadway musicals. The 1950 production Guys and Dolls will draw the final burst of applause in two decades of festival tradition. The story of Miss Sarah Brown and the gambler Sky Masterson finds an ideal setting in Macau, providing a very happy ending to the celebrations of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.

Workshops and conferences on the events will be held to promote public interest and participation in the arts. As in previous years’ festivals, rehearsals for some shows will be open to the public.

Tickets for the 20th Macau International Music Festival will be available after 10am on 23 July 2006 at all Kong Seng Ticketing outlets. Online and telephone reservations will be available from 4pm on the same day. A variety of discount plans will be offered, while detailed publicity materials are available at the ticket counters.

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