This year’s 36th Macao International Music Festival (MIMF) will kick off on 4 October with Puccini’s beloved opera Tosca, at the Macao Cultural Centre’s Grand Auditorium.
A tale of passion and jealousy, Tosca is being performed by Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre – led by acclaimed conductor Valery Gergiev, who is also general director of Moscow’s legendary Bolshoi theatre.
The month-long festival’s closing performance will be “presented by the world-renowned Portuguese Fado diva Mariza and the Macao Chinese Orchestra under the baton of Tsung Yeh,” according to a statement from the Cultural Affairs Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials IC). This will take place on 4 November.
[See more: The Lusofonia Festival will be held over six days this year]
Some of the best musicians from around the world will descend on Macao during the festival, staging 12 programmes in total. Aside from Western-style classical music, this year’s MIMF features a number of special performances using ethnic instruments at Dom Pedro V Theatre.
They include the Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor, playing his kamancheh (spiked fiddle); China’s premier pipa virtuoso Wu Man; and the Grammy-winning tabla player Sandeep Das, from India.
Additionally, two noteworthy jazz musicians from the US – Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Herbie Hancock, who has performed in Macao previously, and the trumpet-playing Wynton Marsalis – are set to perform at the festival.
Tickets for the 36th edition of Macao International Music Festival go on sale via Macau Ticketing Network from 18 August. Early bird discount will run until 25 August, according to IC.
