Bringing music to gourmets

Under the baton of Hu Yongyan, the EOS Repertoire Orchestra's concert features cellist Zhao Xuyang and violinist Gao Can. Zou Hong / China Daily

It will be one of the rare occasions in Beijing when haute cuisine meets haute culture when China World Summit Wing hosts a festive New Year's concert for guests. Chen Nan and Li Fusheng report.

There is every likelihood that you will be handed a musical program instead of a menu on New Year's Day at Beijing's China World Summit Wing Hotel. In fact, you can count on it to be the feast to start the year - a bountiful banquet for the senses. Working with the Central Conservatory of Music's EOS Repertoire Orchestra, the hotel will present music aficionados with a chance to enjoy a classical repertoire from celebrated composers, such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Johann Strauss II and Franz Schubert.

"I love music. It is the food of the spirit," general manager Thomas Schmitt-Glaeser says as he supervises the transformation of the 81-story hotel's huge pillar-free ballroom into a concert hall with optimum acoustics.

"We initiated the concert to bring together people from different backgrounds who love art and life, through the charm and power of music." A carefully thought out menu by executive chef Oliver Weber will certainly help the cause.

The four-course menu draws inspiration from the hotel's international restaurants, and is injected with influences from Chinese, Japanese and Western cuisines, says Weber.

"As a prelude to the concert, I hope they can feel the change of rhyme in the menu. Paired with selected wines, the dinner will be a mesmerizing event for every bon vivant and music lover in the capital."

The Shangri-La hotel sees the event as an effort to break the stereotype of hotels as just places to eat and sleep, and sees itself as taking on more roles and multiple functions. The hotel has already held other crossover events this year, a vertical marathon and a contest for fashion designers.

"We are advocates of the art of life, and we wish to herald a new, elegant and fashionable lifestyle through such events," says Schmitt-Glaeser.

On the other hand, Hu Yongyan, the Chinese-American conductor who will be holding the baton at the New Year's Day concert, has strong views on cultivating talent in China and he is putting his money where his mouth is.