A New Vision Arts Festival programme Guo Wenjing’s Dizi Concerto No. 2 Wildfire

The French newspaper Le Monde has spoken of Guo Wenjing’s “unparalleled musical beauty and dramatic power”. A Chinese composer with a truly international reputation, Guo’s pride in his nation’s musical heritage is shown by his use of traditional Chinese instruments alongside western ones, as in this special commission from the HKPO. Copland, too, showed his national pride by basing themes in his Third Symphony on native American folk melodies, while French composer Henri Dutilleux celebrated the whole heritage of western musical in his work, five years in the making, which is an ingenious experiment in traditional musical forms.