Two major international art events coming to Shanghai will create stage for new talents and bring in many world-acclaimed performers.

　　The International Music Festival will run from May 20 to 31, and the Fifth China Shanghai International Arts Festival is scheduled for October.

　　"This year the festival's theme is 'New Performance, New Inspiration' and will continue Shanghai Spring's tradition of introducing more new artists and works," said Yang Xiaodu, Shanghai Vice Mayor who is director of the music festival's organizing committee yesterday.

　　The annual music festival began in 2001 after merging Shanghai Spring Music and Dance Month, which dated back to the 1960s, and the Shanghai International Broadcasting Music Festival that began in the 1980s.

　　Many well-known Chinese music works, such as the "Butterfly Lover" concerto, debuted at the festival.

　　Over 60 radio programs from home and abroad will compete for the festival's "Golden Chime Award" and a nationwide campus singers' competition and a radio DJ competition will be held.

　　The opening ceremony will feature the opera "Le Nozze di Figaro" staged by young vocalists from the Shanghai Opera House and students from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

　　The Shanghai Traditional Music Orchestra, students of the Shanghai Music Middle School affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and other performing groups and musicians will hold concerts to introduce rising stars or premiere new work.

　　An international forum on modern music will also be held during the festival.

　　This autumn's Fifth China Shanghai International Arts Festival, which runs from October 18 to November 18, will have a far more international color than the spring event, and included more than 20 performances from China and abroad.

　　German maestro Christoph Eschenbach will lead the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg in performing the works of Beethoven and Brahms.

　　Multimedia drama "Leitmotiv" by Canada's Les Deux Mondes and Eugene Ionesco's "The Chairs" by 7 Stages Theater from the United States should all be highlights of the festival, organizers said.

　　Other foreign groups expected to perform at the festival include the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, France's Poitou-Charentes Orchestra and Albania's Tirana Folk Band.