Amidst a crisp, cool breeze, the long-anticipated 2025 Lianhuashan Music Festival opened with a symphonic concert by the Shenzhen Youth Symphony Orchestra at Kite Square on Nov. 22, drawing an estimated 200,000 attendees. More than 6 million online viewers across 10 streaming platforms watched the five concerts held that weekend.

This year’s festival offered a broad musical panorama through a two-day main-stage program of five performances and seven sub-stages that hosted around 30 shows — an ambitious mix that spanned classical and avant-garde styles while blending local and international influences.

Kicking off the festival on the afternoon of Nov. 22, the Shenzhen Youth Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Ouyang Lei and composed of student musicians from across the city, performed patriotic and popular arrangements including “My Motherland,” “The Moon Represents My Heart,” and reworkings of pop classics. The show highlighted Shenzhen’s achievements in youth arts education and the artistic vitality of its young performers.

That evening, the China Nationalities Orchestra opened with traditional favorites such as “Dragon Soaring, Tiger Leaping” and “Yao Dance” before moving into eclectic ensemble pieces like a zhongruan-driven “Zhongruan Rock” and the orchestral “New Song of the Herdsmen.”

Highlights included a novel folk-instrument rendition of the pop ballad “Chrysanthemum Terrace” and the sweeping “Dunhuang.” The encore, an interactive folk-instrument piece titled “Blooming Flowers and Full Moon,” brought the audience into a celebratory, communal finale, underlining how national instruments can tell contemporary Chinese stories.

An international presence added cinematic flair on Nov. 23, when the Budapest Film Symphony Orchestra from Hungary filled Lianhua Hill Park with iconic movie scores — from "Back to the Future" to "Forrest Gump" and "Jurassic Park" — delivering an immersive audiovisual experience that transported listeners through cinema history.

They were followed by the Macao Youth Symphony Orchestra, which performed local original works such as “Moonlit Autumn Voyage” and “Brilliant Staccato” before closing with Mendelssohn's exuberant Symphony No. 4 in A major.

The festival's centerpiece finale on the evening of Nov. 23 celebrated the 35th anniversary of Futian District. Conducted by renowned maestro Robert Kabara, the Futian Symphony Orchestra joined Cantonese opera artist Zeng Xiaomin, soprano Xu Xia, mezzo Yang Yang, and multiple choirs from Shenzhen to present an original program steeped in local memory and civic pride.

For the first time, the festival's sub-stages were set up at seven Futian landmarks — Central Axis Elevated Corridor, Link Central Walk, Xiangmi Park, UpperHills, Bijia Mountain Sports Park Camp, Shangbu Green Corridor, and Lianhua Hill Park's Kite Square. More than 30 social groups, schools, and professional ensembles participated, offering around 30 concerts over a two-week window before the main event.