Photo: VCG

Beijing Music Festival which features a number of music performances came to an end in Beijing on Sunday night with a closing concert held at the capital's Poly Theatre.

The grand finale of the festival took the theme "New Beginnings," first introducing the world premiere of Big BANG! by Wang Ying, followed by Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and Sir George Benjamin's At First Light, written when the British composer was only 22. 

The second half of the program concluded the entire festival with Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, From the New World, an innovative work that opened a new vista more than a century ago. The performance of the piece was led by conductor Jin Yukuang and performed by the Mahler Foundation Festival Orchestra and the Shanghai-based Novus-Classic Camerata to round out the festival. 

Taking "shared future" as its main theme, the festival included a total of 22 concerts such as opera premieres, solo music performances, chamber music and visual symphonic concerts. It aimed to use the four concepts of "Music, Youth, Future and Attitude" to show the burgeoning music scene across the country.