Quick pick Orchestrating innovation The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra works to enliven baroque music with new sounds. The German orchestra, which was founded in 1987, will perform Bach's four orchestral suites in Beijing. It performs a quarter of its concerts under guest conductors, such as Ivor Bolton, Rene Jacobs, Philippe Herreweghe and Trevor Pinnock. 7:30 pm, March 7. Forbidden City Concert Hall (inside Zhongshan Park), Northwest of Tian'anmen Square, Beijing. 010-6559-8285. Provided to China Daily

Art

Indian artists in Beijing

Two Indian artists, Sunanda Khajuria and Dhaneshwar Shah, will hold a joint art show at Huan Tie Times Art Museum in northeastern Beijing.

Running until Feb 24, the exhibition presents a dozen mixed works the resident artists created at the museum.

"For me, the working process of the mind is just like a laboratory, where we experiment with our emotions, putting together our expressions and feelings. New thoughts and techniques emerge and just like an atomic chain reaction they never end and generate new ideas and creations with huge energy. When we draw and paint these experimental new thoughts through lines, colors and forms, an artwork emerges," Shah says.

10 am-5 pm, Feb 24. Huantie Times Art Gallery, Huantie Art Zone, Dashanzi, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6435-2297

Art on feminism

Feminist artist Wang Shuping holds a solo exhibition at Enjoy Art Gallery in Beijing. Eye-catching pieces include her version of women politicians at the G20 Summit.

Compared with her Western counterparts, Wang seems to approach her subjects in a rather emotional way rather than an ideological way, says curator Peng Feng.

10 am-5 pm, until March 3. Enjoy Art Gallery, 798 Art Zone, 2 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010- 5978-9397

Fantastic four

Xiangjiang Gallery is staging its first exhibition of 2012, presenting oil paintings by four artists: Tang Muli, Yu Xiaoyi, Wang Yeliang and Xia Yubing. All the artists demonstrate outstanding techniques and styles that showcase Chinese aesthetic values.

10 am-8 pm, Feb 25-March 19. Xiangjiang Gallery, 30 Gao'an Road, Beijing. 021-6436-2798.

Private goes public

How Art Museum is a private establishment that will open to the public in autumn.

It will present highlights from its collection. On show will be works by such modern Chinese masters as Wu Guanzhong, Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki. There will also be pieces by younger artists, such as Chen Yifei, Zhou Chunya and Zeng Fanzhi. All the artworks were created over the past 30 years and reflect some of the most important achievements of Chinese artists at home and abroad.

9 am-5 pm, Feb 26-March 4. Shanghai Art Museum, 325 Nanjing Road, W, Beijing. 021-6327-2829.

An artist's house viewing

Installed across three spaces at UCCA in the form of a house, the exhibition Inside a Book a House of Gold takes its name from a saying by the artistic Chinese emperor Song Zhenzong.

The works are divided and exhibited according to the logic of a domestic space, with a "playroom", "studio", "city", and a "wardrobe" framing a central "garden". Each of these rooms takes on a special feel and character, aided by radically different walls and other spatial interventions.

Until April 8. UCCA Central Gallery, Nave and Long Gallery, 798 art zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5780-0200.

Concert

A sound deal

The multinational band Amazing Insurance Salesmen is composed of French lead singer Jean-Sebastien Hery, Dutch bass player Maikel and Chinese drummer Mao Mao. It won the first prize at the Global Battle of the Bands China in 2011.

Formed in 2009, the band infuses folk and jazz into rock.

The music flows between short melodic punk songs and long guitar- or bass-driven progressive rock instrumentals.

They will take the stage of Yugong Yishan, with guest performing bands Bye Bye, Thanks for Your Fish! and Flaming Heat.

9 pm, March 3. Yugong Yishan, west courtyard of the former site of Duan Qirui Government, 3-2 Zhangzizhong Lu, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6404-2711.

Ashkenazy plays Beijing

Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence at the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Since then, he has built an extraordinary career, not only as one of the most renowned pianists of our times but also as an artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities.

The program will include Beethoven's Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus, Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat major, and Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor.

7:30 pm, Feb 29. Concert Hall, National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing. 010-6655-0000.

One for the girls

Beautiful Life, a concert by five renowned Chinese sopranos and tenors, will be staged on International Women's Day and dedicated to women and especially mothers.

The concert will be presented in storytelling form and portray women's four life stages, which take them from being children to having children.

Central Conservatory of Music soprano Sun Yuanyuan will sing Three Wishes of Roses, That's Me and Beautiful Like An Angel. The other performers are CCTV Youth Singing Contest gold winner Tenor Xue Haoyin, Chinese People's Liberation Army Naval Song and Dance Troupe soprano Gan Lulu, Royal Academy of Music scholar Wang Dongjuan and pianist Zhang Jialin.

8 pm, March 9. Forbidden City Concert Hall (inside Zhongshan Park), Northwest of Tian'anmen Square, Beijing. 010-6559-8285.

D-22 reborn

The reincarnation of Beijing's defunct rock club D-22 opens with the experimental music festival, Sally Can't Dance 2012, though the venue hasn't got its name yet.

Expect two all-day blowouts of free jazz, harsh noise, minimalist electronics, refracted feedback, abused brass, mangled strings, meditative buzzes, and other sonic experiences of a mysterious or dubious origin.

3 pm to late, March 3, 4. An unadorned and as yet unnamed, white-wall tabula rasa tucked behind a roasted chestnut stand at the southwest corner of Di'anmen (map and program can be found at pangbianr.com)

Yo-Yo bounces back

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble will thrill audiences with their Grammy-nominated classical crossover performances at the Guangzhou Opera House on March 4 - the start of their four-city Chinese tour, which runs through March 10.

The Silk Road Ensemble comprises musicians and other performing artists from nearly 20 countries, with a repertoire of contemporary music that has roots in both Eastern and Western traditions.

Since 2000, the ensemble has been cooperating with Yo-Yo Ma and has earned praise throughout Asia, Europe and North America.

8 pm, March 4. Opera Hall of Guangzhou Opera House, Exit B1 of Zhujiang New Town subway station,at the interchange of subway line 3 and line 5, Guangzhou. 020-3839-2888.

Death Cab pulls in

Death Cab For Cutie's first tour on the Chinese mainland will hit Shanghai and Beijing. After their performance in Shanghai on March 9, the American alternative rock band will hit the stage of Tango in Beijing on March 10.

Formed in 1997, the four-person indie band is made up of Ben Gibbard on vocals, guitar and piano, Chris Walla on guitar and keyboards, Nick Harmer on bass and Jason McGerr on drums. It has grown from a small solo project to a Grammy-nominated rock band after years of hard work and is acclaimed as one of indie rock's greatest success stories.

They have released seven studio albums, five EPs and one demo.

7:30 pm, March 10. Tango Club, 79 Hepingli Xijie, Yonghegong, south of Ditan Park, Beijing. 187-0113-3908.

Opera

New Cantonese Opera

Guangzhou Opera House will stage the modernized Cantonese opera Qingguo Qingqing, written by Hong Kong theatrical arts expert Li Kui Ming on March 10 and 11.

The opera grabs the audience as it delves into the twists and turns of the love story of Li Qingzhao, a woman poet in the Song Dynasty (AD 420-479). Audiences will wonder as to how the poet smartly turns down the emperor's wooing and how she and her husband protect the famous painting Along the River during Qingming Festival.

The writer creates suspense and laughs to the accompaniment of a big band.

Li Shuqing, winner of the Plum Blossom Prize, China's top theatrical award, will play the role of the heroine. Earlier showings will be staged in Foshan, Guangdong province's Qionghua Theater of Foshan on Feb 25 and 26.

7:30 pm, March 10, 11. Opera Hall of Guangzhou Opera House, Exit B1 of Zhujiang New Town subway station, Guangzhou. 020-3839-2888.

Folk operas sound out

A series of Chinese folk opera shows will be presented at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center from March 9 to April 15. The first of the series will be Lu You and Tang Wan, a Yueju opera play that tells the tragic love story of an ancient Chinese poet. The show will feature Mao Weitao, an actress famous for playing male roles.

7:15 pm, March 9 and 10. Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Opera Hall, 425 Dingxiang Road, Shanghai. 021-6854-1234.

Movie

Film from the forest

With no previous filmmaking experience, director Yu Guangyi's debut is an astounding work of great insight and honesty.

Timber Gang (2006) follows a crew of loggers into Changbai Mountains in Northeast China as they work under frigid conditions to fell tress. His second film, Survival Song (2008), focuses on a college graduate laid off by the Forestry Department. To survive, he and his family take over an abandoned logging camp. They subsist by herding and trapping until officials demand they move out, so that a new reservoir for nearby Harbin can be built.

The Indie Film Forum presents both films, and the director will attend.

4:30-6:30 pm, Feb 25, 26. UCCA Art Cinema, 798 art zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5780-0200.

Workshop/seminar

Chinese Opera for kids

Chinese Opera performances are featured at this fun and informative salon, presented by teacher Ji Chao from the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, who introduces Chinese operatic music, dance and costumes - and their appearance in famous books and works of literature - for the younger set. In Chinese only.

10-11:30 am, Feb 26. 50 yuan per person. UCCA La Suite, 798 art zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5780-0200.

Literati explained

Tsinghua University art professor Chen Chiyu is to give a two-hour lecture on the development of wenrenhua or literati painting at National Art Museum of China.

The lecture is part of a public education series that will help viewers better understand its ongoing Exhibition of Ancient Artworks Donated by Deng Tuo, which runs through April 8.

To attend the lecture, please send your name and mobile phone number before 12 am of Feb 24 to ggjy@namoc.org and get confirmation e-mails, to make reservations for seats.

2-4 pm, Feb 25. Conference Room on 7th floor of the National Art Museum of China, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6401-7076