The 39th Shanghai Spring International Music Festival will take place from March 22 to April 14.

This is the oldest music festival in China, and together with the annual China Shanghai International Arts Festival in November, it is an important platform for the communications of artistic institutions at home and abroad, and has witnessed through the past decades the development of the music and dance scenes of Shanghai, says Xa Yujing, Party secretary of the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Arts Circles, which is organizer of the festival.

This year the festival will feature 66 performance productions, 57 of which are concerts and nine dance shows.

The opening concert, taking place at Shanghai Symphony Hall on March 22, is a gala event showcasing outstanding Chinese compositions in celebration of the 75th birthday of the People's Republic of China. The 300-piece concert will bring together musicians from important institutions in town, with instrumentalists from Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, and singers from Shanghai Opera House, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and the children's chorus of CWI Children's Palace. It will be conducted by maestro Yu Feng, head of the Central Conservatory of Music. The closing production, presented at Shangyin Opera House on April 14, will be a joint production of The Barber of Seville by Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Como Opera House in Italy.