GM Buick promotes young artists support program

The Shaanxi Grand Theatre & Xi'an Concert Hall and the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra & Chorus 2019 Performance Season launched strategic cooperation with SAIC General Motors Buick on April 27 in Xi'an, Shaanxi province in Northwest China to promote the Young Artists Support Program.

After nearly a year of contacts and communication, Shaanxi Grand Theatre and SAIC General Motors Buick brand reached a five-year strategic cooperation agreement. They will cooperate in depth to jointly promote the popularization and development of Shaanxi art.

In particular they will work together to launch the Buick Masters Series each year. The Buick Masters Series in 2019 will include such major performances as the musical Notre Dame de Paris, the opera "The Rigoletto" and the New Year Concert in 2019.

Buick and the Shaanxi Grand Theatre have also launched the "Young Artists Support Program". They will spend one million yuan($0.15 million) to fund art every year to attract young people with talent and dreams, to help realize their artistic goals, and to build Xi'an into an capital of art cultivation.

At the cooperation launching ceremony, Luo Min, deputy general manager of the Shaanxi Grand Theater, announced more than 500 performances for 2019, a more abundant offering than that of 2018.

Since it opened in 2017 the Shaanxi Grand Theater has insisted on producing at least one opera a year. This year, for the first time, it has jointly produced Verdi's "Rigoletto" with three famous European opera houses, and invited a top Hollywood team and opera stars to form a dream team. This is the biggest investment of this year.

A performance of Verdi's "Rigoletto" [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Xi'an Concert Hall opened in 2009. In the past ten years, it has introduced various top artists and orchestras from around the world and trained 170,000 Xi'an art lovers.

This year, on its tenth anniversary the hall will present truly profound experiences for its audiences. Famous conductor Tan Dun will present the latest work "Ode to Dunhuang Mercy" with the French Lyon National Orchestra Orchestra and the German Lubeck International Chorus Academy. Ma Youyou, an old friend of the concert hall, will come to Xi'an again after many years, bringing Bach's "Unaccompanied Suite".

A performance of the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Since 2013, the annual outdoor performance of the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra has gradually become the city's cultural highlight. In September 2019, the orchestra will give another special performance to tens of thousands of people in the North Plaza of Dayan Pagoda.