There is both good news and bad news for local classical music fans.

The good is that master conductor Charles Dutoit is returning with the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra and violinist Maxim Vengerov.

The bad is that his concert at the Poly Theatre tonight means the end of the annual Beijing Music Festival.

However, the choice for the finale is a good one as the 68-year-old Swiss conductor will be accompanied by a brilliant soloist and a promising orchestra composed of young talents from all over the world.

The program includes Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro, Overture," Beethoven's "Violin Concerto in D major," Debussy's "Prelude of the Afternoon of a Faun," and Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."

The concert is part of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra's Asia tour. Traveling with Dutoit are the soloists Julian Rachlin and Maxim Vengerov. Prior to Beijing, they performed in Singapore, Hong Kong and later will visit Tokyo.

The Lausanne-born conductor's first visit to Beijing was in 1996 when he took the baton of the Orchestra National de France. He has graced Beijing's concert halls several times and has become one of the most familiar conductors to local classical music fans.

His passion and talent has not only thrilled audiences all over the world as Dutoit has served as artistic director or principal conductor for many prestigious orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra National de France and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal.

It is neither Vengerov's first concert in Beijing, nor his first at the Beijing Music Festival. Vengerov performed with a chamber orchestra in the Fourth Beijing Music Festival in 2001.

In a telephone interview with the South China Morning Post, the violinist described the Beethoven concerto he played on the Asia tour.

"It's one of the most difficult pieces to play. We all know Beethoven as a personality with angst, who sometimes has disagreements within himself. We can hear this fighting throughout his life in his music, especially in his late opuses. But the violin concerto stands out. It's so pure, so free of those inner disagreements. Finally, I think, in this place Beethoven found his exile - where the fight is no longer needed."

A son of an oboe-player and choir mistress in the Western Siberian capital Novosibirsk, Vengerov started to play the violin when he was 5.

At the age of 10, he won the Junior Wieniawski Competition in Poland and soon his recital engagements in Moscow and Leningrad followed.

In 1995 his recording of the Prokoviev and Shostakovich violin concertos won Gramophone awards in the "Best Record of the year" and the "Best Concerto Recording" categories, later also garnering two Grammy nominations.

He recounts his boyhood in his own words: "When I was 4 years old, two things dominated my evenings and nights: playing my violin and riding my tricycle. Riding a tricycle is something most 4-year-olds do, and you might think it was perfectly normal for me, too. But it wasn't, really, because I usually went on my tricycle after the other kids in Novosibirsk were fast asleep - at about three o'clock in the morning."

He started practicing the violin at about seven or eight after dinner every evening and kept going until he was too tired to play anymore.

The school in Moscow provided a good education beyond music. He learned the importance of real-life experiences.

"A piece can remain the same, but as time passes I bring different experiences to bear on it. To pick up a new piece of music is to open a new chapter in my life. As I learn the music I draw emotional feelings from it.

"I really can't imagine my life without music at the center. I always thank God for giving me this gift, and I believe that it carries with it the responsibility to use it generously."

With his performance diary booked five years ahead, now he plays about 130 concerts each year in 100 different cities around the world, which means he is in and out of each city in a day or two.

Sponsored by UBS, the global financial services firm, the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra is made up of more than 100 musicians aged 17 to 29 years from all over the world.

The orchestra gave its acclaimed debut at the opening of the Verbier Festival & Academy in July 2000 under its music director and chief conductor James Levine, also the artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera New York and music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Each year, the orchestra incorporates new young talent into its ranks, replacing some of the more experienced participants. Auditions are held in a number of different cities around the world to select new members. The orchestra is thus an exciting combination of newly recruited talent and musicians who are returning to play another season.

"As the quality of the group's performances has been refined over the years, the standards for the auditions have also risen. This approach is part of the reason the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra has achieved the outstanding caliber of musical performance for which it has become known," said the music director, Levine.

"It was literally like a dream come true. I worked those kids so hard, they had to learn so much so quickly. We had to work out a rota system for using different people as principle players, assess what they might do best, what they needed to learn and endless other onside rations," he added.

Each year, the principals from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York, coach the orchestra in the weeks preceding the festival. The valuable experience gained from such orchestral training and from working with great conductors and artists has produced outstanding results.

(China Daily November 5, 2004)