2 different flavors of Festivals: Nine Gates Jazz & Beijing Music Festival Hit Beijing

It’s funny how everyone gets involved with the underground festival with rock/rap/punk/pop but two of the biggest festivals of the year, that are just getting started in Beijing, are not even getting a mini buzz even though they’ll probably pull a heck of a lot more audience that most of the others: The 13th international Beijing Music Festival and the Nine Gates Jazz Festival.
Listen, I’m a jeans and T-shirt kinda guy but every so often, dressing up to get inside the Forbidden City concert hall can be just as rewarding as a late night fender bender at 2 Kolegas!!

13th International Beijing Music Festival:

You can find all the information you need over on their official website at www.bmf.org.cn as far as who’s coming and when it’s happening. Being a rough uneducated heavy metal fan, I can’t really appreciate all the names but folks who understand that stuff assure me that it’s a star studded lineup with the who’s who world renowned artists.
I am most excited about the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic OrchestralⅠ-John Lennon Songbook event… this is a perfect compromise for this barbarian… and it does take place at the Forbidden City Concert Hall with tickets for RMB 80, 120 and 180…. definitely worth checking out!

here is the full schedule: http://www.bmf.org.cn/2010/ljrc/pwxxen.html

Nine Gates Jazz Festival

in it’s 5th year since being started by Chinese Jazz aficionados, the Nine Gates Jazz Festival is a bit more low key with events taking place all over the place in Yugong Yishan, Poly theatre, Jianghu etc.. There are whole bunch of cool artists coming to town for this one with a concentration of Scandinavians.
I’m looking at the schedule right now debating which ones would be more interesting but unfortunately, I have to lament the lack of artists from a cajun background representing New Orleans… that’s my favorite flavor of Jazz and I was hoping there would be some of it coming to Beijing this week.. oh well! Come on guys, ever hear of Louis Amstrong?

Some highlights are Tonight’s Concert at Yugong Yishan by Monica Freire which I am looking forward to as well as Germany’s Swinging Fireballs. One other performance of interest is the Blue Head Septet which is a bunch of local musicians heavily influenced by 50s and 60s Jazz a la Herbie Hanckok which can be amazing when done right.

you can find the full schedule for the Nine Gates Festival here:
http://www.ninegates.com.cn/ENSchedule/

cool beanz folks… get out and get some culture! Throw some devil horns out there when the liverpool orchestral does their version of Helter Skelter