Macau International Music Festival even more diverse
There's no beach party at Hac Sa this year but music lovers are still assured of a whale of a good time at the Macau International Music Festival.Andrew Sun wades in
Exploring and exploiting unconventional venues has always been a hallmark of the Macau International Music Festival (MIMF). In this respect, this year's 26th edition offers both good news and bad.
The bad news is last year's popular new location, Hac Sa Beach on Coloane, is unavailable for another big outdoor music party due to construction on the black sand waterfront.
The good news is that one of Macau's oldest churches, St Lazarus, has been fitted with a new pipe organ and the festival will hold a choral and organ concert of sacred music there.
The line-up for the 2012 edition of the MIMF was recently announced by its artistic director, Warren Mok Wah-lun, who was appointed to the post in 2000, the year after Macau reverted to Chinese administration. Now in his 13th festival, the Hong Kong opera singer has kept the event delectably diverse. "I think every year is pretty international. That's what it's all about," Mok says. "This year, maybe we have more variety but each year we try to have different countries and different performers."
Kicking off on October 5 is a three-night run of Peter Pan, starring Cathy Rigby. Her performance netted the one-time American Olympic gymnast a Tony Award nomination for best leading actress in a musical in 1991.
But the backbone of the festival's programming is still its symphonic and operatic presentations. Notable classical acts heading for Macau include Hungary's the Kodaly Quartet (October 11), whose discography includes more than 60 titles on Hong Kong's Naxos label; and Russian-born violin wunderkind Vadim Repin in a recital (October 14) featuring works by composers Brahms, Debussy and Grieg.