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Interview: Austria's Brucknerfest 2015 to build cultural bridges with China: festival official

Xinhua, May 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The 2015 Brucknerfest Music Festival in the Austrian city of Linz is to build cultural bridges with China, this year's partner country, a festival official said here Tuesday.

China is a major global nation with a strong tradition and with whom bridges could be built both musically and culturally, cultural director of the festival Hans-Joachim Frey told Xinhua after a press conference briefing the upcoming Festival.

The partnership is only a beginning, and is something that will hopefully be expanded on in future, where the musical and artistic growth of both countries can continue to be shared and observed, particularly with new artists constantly emerging from China, he said.

Following a partnership with Russia in 2013, festival organisers soon turned their attention to a second future partnership, for which the choice of China soon became clear, Frey said.

The program of this year's festival will include two concerts by the Macao Orchestra who will play in Austria for the first time, along with the Tian Kong Women's Chorus, numerous solo artists, as well as an exhibition from Linz's sister city Chengdu. Nine evenings will be dedicated to Chinese performances alone.

Frey also hoped the festival would result in Austrians gaining a new-found awareness of the impressiveness of Chinese culture and tradition, and the high quality of Chinese musicians and artists.

At the press conference, mayor of Linz Klaus Luger emphasized the Chinese market is "very important" for his city.

Chinese ambassador to Austria Zhao Bin noted the importance of cultural and economic ties between the two countries, and said the Chinese public will now also gain awareness of the Brucknerfest amongst Austria's leading music festivals.

The festival, named after famous Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, is sponsored in part by the city of Linz, and will this year have the motto "encounters create special moments." It will run from Sept. 13 to Oct. 7. Endit