as the building is known.

Participants had no programme or skill requirement save one - to play a Chinese piece. While some sandwich musical nostalgia between western crowd-pleasers, others opt to show the best of home.

The year-old Chongqing Symphony Orchestra, for example, offers no 'safe' western music, choosing instead to play Cheng Dazhao's Chang Jiang, an 80-minute, 12-movement symphonic ode to the Yangtze River in a performance on May 24.

'The music traces the path of the Yangtze, from the snow-capped mountains all the way to the sea,' says Li Lunji, vice-chairman of the Chongqing Opera House.

'It reflects people's love of their mother river.'

Although Cheng is a Shaanxi native, the music is local, featuring a Sichuan percussion pack, which includes a tanggu or dagu (big drum), bo (cymbals), luo (gong), ban (drum) and xiaogu (small drum). 'Percussion is used to express joy and grand ceremony,' says Li.

Even more interesting is muye, leaves used as woodwind instruments, traditionally played by the Tu, Gaoshan and local Yi minority people.

Players hold one leaf flat in their mouths to produce a crystalline, whistling sound. 'They have to adjust their breathing and mouth muscles to produce a melody,' says Li. 'It's very difficult.'

Also going local is northwest Gansu province's Lanzhou Symphony Orchestra, which celebrates the province's major tourist attraction, the ancient cave paintings of Dunhuang. Composer Zhang Qianyi's 2001 Dreaming of Dunhuang, which accompanied the well-travelled dance piece of the same name, is now flying solo.

It depicts the tale of young painter (Mogao), who is obsessed with the purity of great art and inconveniently falls in love with a general's daughter (Yueya). While both are trapped in a cave - with her father's army outside - she saves his life by sacrificing her own. In her death, she turns into a clear spring, which Mogao uses to moisten his brush and create the cave paintings for which Dunhuang is known.

The orchestra, performing on May 12, will use a northern Chinese banhu (a bowed stringed instrument with a wooden soundboard), pipa, guzheng and xun (an ancient porcelain or clay wind instrument) to create some local flavour, such as the sound of flying sand or the water in the wells.

From the considerably more watery Zhejiang province in the southeast, Zhejiang Opera House Symphony Orchestra's programme includes Chun Gui Meng (Dream of a Young Girl) from Mu Dan Ting (Peony Pavilion). This is Wang Tianming's orchestrated version of Kunqu opera's most famous story, and features the qudi, a bamboo flute especially fashioned for this 500-year-old art form.

'Zhejiang makes me think of water, gardens and mild weather,' says Shi Ranzhu, vice-chairman of the Zhejiang Opera House. 'It's the land of milk and honey.'

Their second Chinese piece Zhe Gu Fei (Partridges Flying in the Sky) is a flute folksong orchestrated by the Zhejiang-born 'King of Flute', Zhao Songting (1924-2001). 'The bangdi (northern flute) is bolder while the sudi (southern flute) is more subtle and graceful,' Shi says.

'Zhao combined them both with western flute-playing skills and created the zhedi (Zhejiang flute).'

Playing 'Zhe' requires virtuosity and circular breathing; for Beijing's concert, the flautist is Zhao's former student Jiang Guoji.

'The music represents a partridge flying very fast, so the flute players' breathing skills are on display,' Shi says.

How well these concerts will fare in the capital is yet to be seen; Beijingers often treat people from outside the capital the way westerners treat illegal immigrants.

Although China may be the world's largest classical music market, NCPA vice-president Yang Jingmao admits that, 'musically, we have a long way to go'.

The Symphonic Spring event offers cheap concerts and, for a 40 yuan (HK$44.5) general entrance fee, lectures, documentary films, exhibitions and, most significantly, chamber performances.

Chinese musicians tend to strive for solo careers or settle for sections, leaving the small ensemble repertoire sadly neglected, even while western artists insist that chamber music is the truest test of musicianship.

Yang hopes the event and all its facets will be a crash course in music appreciation for Beijing's uninitiated - most of whom will be busy snapping theatre pictures with their camera phones. Reportedly, 80 per cent of NCPA patrons are seeing their first show; some actually leave after the first number, not realising there's more to come.

'First we have to build an [educated] audience,' Yang says.

But what is certain is that playing at 'The Egg' will give provincial orchestras credibility back home, enabling them to improve their own ensembles. 'They have been recruiting talent from other provinces,' says Yang.

Still, he acknowledges that symphonic music in China is a work in progress and allowances must be made. 'If we held these orchestras up to our usual standards, we wouldn't be hosting so many,' he says. 'We have to be realistic and help them to improve.'

Five invited orchestras will not be attending - NCPA cited schedule conflicts - the most noticeable gaps in the lineup are the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Guangdong Symphony Orchestra, both under the artistic direction of maestro Yu Long, who founded the Beijing Music Festival.

Describing the NCPA as a 'wonderful platform for the arts', Yu nevertheless feels the event's organisers lack a clear artistic vision such as highlighting one type of music or programme, and that presenting groups of vastly different levels as equals blurs the line between art and the market.

True or not, participating orchestras are thrilled to be involved, and Beijing audiences now have a chance to experience six weeks of affordable music - and of course see inside the 'The Egg'.