Forbidden City concert to mark 100 years since death of Charles Camille Saint-Saens will also feature Chinese works, Chen Nan reports.

With this year marking the centennial of the death of French composer Charles Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921), a concert featuring his works is being staged during the Beijing Music Festival at the Forbidden City Concert Hall.

Under the baton of conductor Jing Huan, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra will, on Monday, perform music pieces by Saint-Saens, including Violin Concerto No 3 in B Minor, Op 61 and Violin Concerto No 2 in C Major, Op 58.

Chinese violinist Liu Ming, 25, a new concertmaster of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, will perform Violin Concerto No 3 in B Minor, Op 61, a piece Saint-Saens composed at the age of 45 in 1880.

Violinist Vera Tsu Weiling, who is a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, will play Violin Concerto No 2 in C Major, Op 58.

During the concert, composer Chen Qigang's two music pieces, symphonic overture Instants d'un Opera de Pekin (Moments from a Peking Opera) and Itineraire d'une Illusion (Itinerary of an Illusion), will also be performed. It will create a musical dialogue between Chen, a Shanghai-born composer, who studied classical music in Paris and lived in France for decades, and Saint-Saens, a major musical figure of the Romantic era.

Born in Shanghai to a family of intellectuals in 1951, Chen graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and went to study in France in 1984. He became the last student of legendary French composer Olivier Messiaen's, studying with him from 1984 to 1988.

Chen's works range from chamber music, symphony orchestras and vocal music to scores for ballet and film. He was the musical director for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and composed the song You and Me.

"After living in China for over 30 years, I moved to France. At that time, I was open to various music styles and I have been greatly influenced by French music, especially the leading composers of impressionist music, such as Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy," says Chen, adding that Chinese culture, including folk music, Chinese operas and art, also influenced him.

Instants d'un Opera de Pekin, a solo piano composition, commissioned by the Messiaen International Piano Competition 2000, saw Chen incorporating Chinese musical elements with Western compositional techniques.

As a child, Chen was introduced to traditional Chinese operas, especially Peking Opera, by his father, and even after he moved to France, Chen's love for traditional Chinese operas remained strong and their influence was apparent in his compositions.

In 2014, Chen adapted the piece into a symphonic overture, which was commissioned by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for the grand opening of Shanghai Symphony Hall. Chinese percussion instruments used in Peking Opera performances, such as gongs and cymbals of various sizes, were featured in Chen's expanded composition.

Chen's Itineraire d'une Illusion for orchestra premiered in 2018 in the Netherlands. Originally, the piece was scheduled to be staged at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing in 2017.However, the composer canceled the performance after watching the rehearsals.

"It's just not what I want. It's so disappointing. I am aware that my decision will cause a lot of trouble but the inconvenience can be ignored for the sake of art," the composer said in an interview in 2017 at the NCPA before the concert. "It's the first time for me to cancel a scheduled premiere of my work. But for artists, it's important to acknowledge wrong ideas and start all over again."

With the goal of promoting musical works by Chinese composers high on its agenda, the Beijing Music Festival, one of the largest classical music events in the country, launched by conductor Yu Long in 1998, already premiered some of Chen's compositions.

In 2002, Wu Xing (The Five Elements) for symphonic orchestra and Iris Devoilee (Iris Unveiled), a concerted suite for grand orchestra, three female voices and three traditional Chinese instruments, made their debut in China during the 5th Beijing Music Festival. Chen's Reflet d' Un Temps Disparu (Reflections of a Vanished Time) for cello and orchestra was adapted into a version for erhu and orchestra during the same concert, which was a world premiere.

In 2017, Chen's violin concerto, La Joie de la Souffrance (The Joy of Suffering), had its world premiere during the closing concert of the 15th Beijing Music Festival, which was performed by China Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Yu Long, featuring violinist Maxim Vengerov.

La Joie de la Souffrance for violin and orchestra was inspired by the traditional Chinese music piece, Yang Guan San Die (Three Variations of Yangguan). The theme of the piece is about parting, which the composer related to on a personal level. In 2012, he lost his only son, Chen Yuli, a composer, who was just 29 years old.

This year, Chen celebrates his 70th birthday. He says that he is away from the crowds and "suddenly got old".

"When I was 68, I still considered new musical works. I fell sick when I was 69 and now I have stopped thinking about composing new works," Chen says. "I sense the change in my health condition, the change of my skin and my look. Though I never intentionally think of how old I am, I am reminded of my age from all those aspects. It's fear inside me, which is inevitable. I am learning to confront it."

In 2015, the composer launched a composition workshop at Gonggeng College in China as a platform for young musicians to interact and compose for a whole week while staying in a remote village in Suichang county, East China's Zhejiang province.

"The friends around me are always young people in their 20s. It seems that I am getting old and they are not," Chen says.