Scholar brings Bach to Beijing

German conductor Helmuth Rilling recently shared his understanding of Bach's music with Chinese students at a master class in Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music.

Rilling is one of the foremost experts on Bach and is founder of the Gahinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart orchestras.

He conducted both groups to present a concert at the 14th Beijing Music Festival, featuring Mahler's arrangement of Bach's Suite for String Orchestra, Harpsichord and Organ. The performance marked the work's China premiere.

Dance contest finds its feet

The eighth Lotus Awards Chinese Ethnic and Folk Dance Competition will be staged in Guizhou's provincial capital Guiyang from Nov 1 to Nov 3.

The contest is one of the country's most established and has produced many of China's most famous dancers, including Yang Liping, who is acclaimed for her dance performance Dynamic Yunnan.

The final will feature 51 works from 14 ethnic groups and proffer prizes for the best works, choreographers and dancers. Winners will travel to Guizhou's countryside to perform for locals.

Engineering deans build bridges

More than 200 engineering deans from 30 countries attended the recent third annual conference of Global Engineering Deans Council at Peking University to discuss engineering education, leadership and challenges in a globalized world.

Founded in 2008, in Paris, the Global Engineering Deans Council serves as a global network for engineering deans to leverage their collective strengths for the advancement of engineering education, research and service to the global community. This year, institutional leadership, sustainability issues, curricular innovation and challenges were the main focuses.

The conference enhanced cooperation among the world's prestigious universities and Peking University, which re-established its engineering school in 2005, university president Zhou Qifeng says.

Project cultivates creative youth

Easy Creation, a project seeking to cultivate 10,000 youth entrepreneurs in cultural and creative industries within five years, was recently launched at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

The initiative operates in accordance with the government's strategy to prioritize the development of creative industries.

The project will organize hundreds of salons hosted by major players in relevant fields in the country's prestigious universities. It will also stage several competitions for students.

Easy Creation is co-sponsored by human resources giant China Talent Group and Business People magazine.

Festival to promote visual art industry

The first Jing Yuan Art Festival to promote and develop the country's visual art industry, started on Oct 14 at Jing Yuan Image Base, a major art community focusing on photography and video art.

Organized by Beijing Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Center, the month-long carnival's highlight is a visual art symposium to develop advanced studio skills and cultivate aesthetic appreciation, and an awards ceremony for Chinese teenage photographers and video shorts makers.

The festival also includes free documentary screenings and photography exhibitions.