Ping Pong Concerto will be the highlight of the upcoming Beijing Music Festival.[Photos provided to China Daily]

The BMF will feature renowned Latvian-born Israeli cellist Mischa Maisky performing young Chinese composer Zou Ye's Variations on Chinese Melody for Cello and Orchestra.

Puccini wrote the Chinese folk song Jasmine into his opera Turandot in 1924 to make it probably the most well-known Chinese melody in the world. During its tour of the Vatican in May 2008 to perform for Pope Benedict XVI, the China Philharmonic Orchestra played this piece after Mozart's Requiem.

The BMF commissioned Zou to interpret the old melody into a modern cello concerto.

"As a leading music festival in China, I think we have the responsibility to commission works," says Yu. "Music is an art that passes from one generation to another. We had Mozart and Beethoven and the classical works. Now we need to find emerging talents and help them create great works."

Yu is artistic director of not only the BMF, but also Music in the Summer Air festival in Shanghai, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Every year his institutions commission a number of new works. For example, Instants d'un Opera de Peking was commissioned by Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to open its new concert hall last September. The Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra commissioned another famous Chinese composer, Tan Dun, to write piano concerto Farewell My Concubine to close its last season on July 31.

Maestro Charles Dutoit told China Daily in an interview in Beijing in July that, if not for Yu and the Beijing Music Festival, classical music would not be flourishing in China now.

His latest interesting commission is the Ping Pong Concerto by 36-year-old American composer Andy Akiho. Co-commissioned by the BMF and Music in the Summer Air, the piece premiered in Shanghai in July and will reverberate at Beijing's Poly Theater on Oct 22.