XU Xiyi
XU Xiyi is a Chinese composer and conductor. As a graduate from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he was assigned to the Song and Dance Ensemble of the PLA General Political Department to be a professional composer and conductor. Currently, he is the director of Chinese Musicians Association, Chairman of Chorus China, a permanent member and expert of the Art Education Committee, Ministry of Education of China. He enjoys the special government allowance of the State Council.
He has created hundreds of pieces of music covering songs, chorus, orchestral music, dance drama, dance music, film and TV programmes and dramatic music. Among them, over 90 ones have won the awards of Five “One” Project and the Liberation Army Literature and Art Award, etc. His works Soldiers Singing an Ode to Chairman Mao, Full Moon (joint work) and Sunny Light have been very popular.
In 1993, he organized the Philharmonic Male Voice Chorus of Chinese Musicians Association. Led by him, this chorus has given performance at home and abroad, and has held a number of concerts including the Concert of Collected Chinese and Foreign Songs and Concert of Collected Russian Songs.
He has acted as a judge for the “Golden Bell Awards” sponsored by Chinese Musicians Association, the International Chorus Festival and CCTV Young Singers Awards Competition for many times. In recent years, he has served as the Honorary Member of the Art Committee of World Peace Choral Festival in Austria, Jury President of World Choral Competition in Vienna and the Honorary Member of the Art Committee of German International Cultural Exchange Foundation and the Olympics of Choral Music.
Marco Bellei
Born 1970 in Italy, Marco Bellei started to play the piano at the age of five, and received his Ph.D in piano with full marks under the guidance of his tutor Mirella Gollini in Modena O.Vecchi Conservatory of Music in 1992 before getting two Master’s degrees in conducting and composing.
Later, he went to St. Petersburg Rimiskj-Korsakov Conservatory of Music with the Russian national scholarship for further study in piano and conducting under the guidance of E.V. Basanov.
He has won many awards, including Music Awards for Young Talents and other awards in Tortona of Milan, Rome, and Imperia, Italy; Mirella Freni Special Awards which is named after the famous soprano as the best pianist in the same year; the contest held by Spoleto “A.Belli” Experimental Opera Theatre for selecting and training top art directors for opera theatres before serving as the art director and assistant conductor in the theatre in 1993.
He started to cooperate with a number of world-renowned opera theatres and artists, including conductors Zhubin Metha, Rorberto Abbado, Richard Bonynge, Renè Jacobs, T·Pinnock, M·De Bernart, I·Bolton, S·Ranzani, C·Rovaris, etc; directors Luca Ronconi, Gram Vick, Lamberto Pugelli, Sandro Sequi, Luca·Mariani, Giancarlo Cobelli, etc; opera singers P·Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni, Magda Olivero, Mietta Sighele, Bruno De Simone, Andra Rost, Raul Gimenez, Jose Bros, Leo Nucci, Juan Diego Florez, etc.
He served as the art director and conductor for May Music Festival in Florence and Florence Opera Theater (Teatro Comunale) from 1996 to 2001. His famous works are Le comte Ory by Gioachino Rossini, “Lucia Di Lamermoor” by Gaetano Donizetti, the Baroque musics such as L’Incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo and Il ritorno di Ulisse in Patria by Claudio Monteverdi.
He served as the art director for the William Walton Fund in Ischia, Italy, and cooperated with Comunale Opera Theater in Bologna and its principal director Daniele Gatti from 2002.
From then on, he started to run masterclasses with many masters, especially the annual masterclasses with Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni in Modena. He served as the art director in Modena, participating in producing several operas, including Fedora by Giordano, and Madame sans gene together with Mirella Freni and Placido Domingo.
He became a professor at Henan Normal University in 2008. During his nine years in China, he has provided guidance in terms of vocal education and opera rehearsal and performance.
He participated in the rehearsal of Tosca together with many A-list singers at Tianjin Grand Theatre at the invitation of the famous conductor TANG Muhai.Also, he gave gala concerts for the masterclasses of violin and orchestra together with Stefano Pagliani, the former first solo violin of Teatro alla Scala. He performed La Traviata at Tianjin Grand Theatre, and once again on March 22nd, 2015.
ZHU Man
ZHU Man currently serves as the permanent conductor of China National Opera House. She ever studied with Professor YU Feng, a celebrated Chinese conductor, president of the Central Conservatory of Music and chairman of Chinese Conductors Association.
Since 2009, ZHU Man has served as the permanent conductor of China National Opera House Symphony Orchestra. She ever directed the performance of a large number of domestic and foreign symphony orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra of the UK, Besancon Symphony Orchestra in France, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra of Canada, Victoria Opera House in Melbourne, Rome Symphony Orchestra, Samsun State Opera and Ballet of Turkey and China Philharmonic Orchestra etc. as well as the world premiere of many works by Chinese and foreign composers.
As the conductor of “2009-2015 China National Opera House International Opera Festival”, she directed operas like Puccini’s Turandot, Madama Butterfly, Tosca and La bohème, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Valkyrius, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung and Das Rheingold, Verdi’s operas such as La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and Aida, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Leoncavallo’s opera Pagliacci, Chinese opera The White Haired Girl and the Chinese opera commissions Farewell My Concubine, The Love Story of Rawap, Revolution in 1911, Hongbang Tailor and Dream Forest as well as a large number of symphonies. She was also invited to be the conductor of NCPA’s “Weekend Concert” for three consecutive years from 2009 to 2011.
On September 3rd and 4th, 2014, Beethoven’s opera Fidelio was premiered by China National Opera House under the baton of ZHU Man at Poly Theater in Beijing.
Puccini’s opera Turandot and Verdi’s Il Trovatore were staged at NCPA under the direction of ZHU Man in 2012 and 2013 respectively, who thus won the first “Outstanding Young Conductor Award at the Collective Show of Excellent Plays from National Art Theatres and Troupes” launched by the Ministry of Culture.
In 2014, the opera commission Hongbang Tailor directed by her was given the Five “One” Project Award for Excellent Works in the 13th campaign for cultural and ideological progress.
At the invitation of Hungarian Budapest Spring Festival in April 2016, ZHU Man directed the performance of Puccini’s Turandot by over 200 artists from China National Opera House at Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest. Famous German music critic Robert Quitta said the artists presented Puccini’s Turandot at the highest level under the direction of ZHU Man.