Photo: Courtesy of BMF

It was a unique performance, as digital art, stage design, and piano shared a stage. Young pianist Zhang Haotian, digital artist DaDa (Da Qiuyan), and artistic director Ren Dongsheng staged such an innovative performance for the Beijing Music Festival, bringing a new experience to the audiences in Beijing.

The program is dominated by "arrangements" of works originally written for other instruments, proving the piano's versatility and insight. The two major works featured, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Stravinsky's Petrushka, both originally written for ballet, are complemented by Liszt's arrangements of Schubert and Schumann, as well as Balakirev's of Glinka.

"I am very lucky to be able to try a new performance style with the Beijing Music Festival," said Zhang Haotian. "For us young musicians, experimentation is the most important thing. Art and technology, classical and contemporary, the fusion and collision of culture and ideas can produce great works. In this era, we are inevitably faced with changes in digital iteration, and we must be brave enough to try different types of works and maintain artistic creative energy."