Twenty-ninth MIMF to ‘nourish souls’

The 29th Macau International Music Festival (MIMF) kicked-off at the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM) yesterday evening. The opening ceremony was held at the CCM lobby, and was attended by the President of Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), Mr Ung Vai Meng, who highlighted the goal of the festival of “bringing out aesthetic appreciation and nourishing the soul” in his opening speech.
This year’s festival has gathered a number of internationally renowned names in its team of solo artists, choirs, orchestras and ensembles. For the first time in the history of the festival, however, it included two concerts of local musicians in order to encourage local talent and to provide a performance platform for local young artists. The two concerts, titled “Bravo Macau”, were held on 25 and 26 September at the Dom Pedro V Theatre and featured performances from local young musicians: the violinist Sophia Feinga Su, the saxophonist Hugo Loi, the pianist Ray Long and the violist Katy Ho.
This year’s festival – consisting of the theme “Soundmazing” – is intended, according to the IC president, to use voice and vocal music to “nourish souls.”
The festival opened with a performance of Gustav Mahler – “Symphony No. 3”, conducted by Macau Orchestra’s Music Director Lu Jia and featuring the renowned mezzo soprano Charlotte Hellekant, as well as the Macau Orchestra, the China NCPA Orchestra and Chorus, and the Macau Youth Choir.
The Festival programme continues until the end of October and includes more than twenty musical performances, as well as an Outreach program comprising of master classes, workshops and much more, promising to inject life into many venues across the region.
As for the highlights, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsako’s one-act opera “Mozart and Salieri” will take the stage of the Dom Pedro V Theatre , with artists from Moscow’s Novaya Opera Theatre at the helm of this performance. In a different field, Portuguese singer Pedro Moutinho, one of today’s most renowned fado voices, is cooperating with the Portuguese accordion quartet Danças Ocultas to perform in concert as “Danças Ocultas and Pedro Moutinho”.  This will allow Moutinho and Ocultas to take these Portuguese sounds to Mount Fortress, and to allow the audience to experience fado in the Macau autumn breeze.
These are just a few of the performances that IC expects to delight those “who are passionate about music and life”. RM