Musicians work together at China Shanghai Intl Arts Festival

This weekend, an Israeli orchestra with a British conductor will be playing music by a Chinese composer. Musicians from all three countries are rehearsing for the China Shanghai International Arts Festival.

It's called "Pipa Pattern," and the composer is Professor He Xuntian. The foreign musicians are using string instruments to recreate the sound of the traditional Chinese Pipa.

"It's more free music, not like western music which is very organized. You will have to have a lot of fantasy, to put inside a lot of fantasy. And it needs some time to get in the music," Eckart Lorenzen with Israel Symphony Orchestra said.

"Every composer in the 21st century has a different language, but it's all international, it's all eventually the same musical imagination we have to explore. And the great thing about Professor He's music is that it asks us to use a lot of imagination. Not only play the notes as written but to understand why they are written," Conductor James Judd said.

It's the first time the Israel Symphony Orchestra has worked with Chinese musicians. And He says he had a reason for choosing an Israeli group.

"The nation of Israel is very unique. It has a long and rich history. Their way of thinking is neither eastern nor western. So I think that they can give a different feeling to my work," Professor He said.

All five works to be played at the concert are original compositions and represent oriental culture.

"For more than a hundred years, we've always been playing western scores. I think the international arts festival should not only bring foreign works to China but also introduce Chinese works to the outside world. In fact, almost every Chinese artist has their own ideas and they have to express them in their own way" Professor He said.

The concert is at 7:30pm on Saturday at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. The only seats still available cost 580 yuan.