The launch in June of Australia’s year of culture in China has kicked off with two exceptional events in Beijing.

Guests attending the launch of Imagine Australia – The Year of Australian Culture – at Beijing’s iconic National Centre for Performing Arts were treated to a breathtaking concert showcasing some of Australia’s top performing artists.

Launched by the Governor-General of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce, the concert showcased a diverse range of performances from up-and-coming Australian artists including Australian Idol runner-up Jessica Mauboy, violin soloist Niki Vasilakis and Australia’s leading didgeridoo player William Barton (pictured left with Niki Vasilakis), and while hugely varied in their mediums, in their traditions and their origins, showcased in the one concert, the diversity and synergies of Australia’s multi-cultural heritage.

The evening concluded with two excerpts from the opera Passion – an Australian-Chinese collaboration blending Western and Peking traditions were performed. The first, 'Love at First Sight' and the second 'Gossip' which both form part of a longer piece to be premiered in Beijing in early 2011.

The Concert coincided with the opening of ‘Aboriginal Art from Australia’s Deserts’ at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The exhibition is a combination of ‘Papunya Painting: out of the Australian Desert’ and ‘Balgo: Contemporary Australian Art from the Balgo Hills’ and will form part of a reciprocal exchange to host an exhibition of Chinese art in Australia in late 2011.
The artworks showcase the history, traditions and stories of the Papunya and Balgo Hills communities of central Australia, which despite differences in their artistic style, express the common link between land and place and how these connections have been maintained throughout the 40,000 years of Indigenous Australian culture and history.

The exhibition runs until August 31 at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

Imagine Australia – Year of Australian Culture in China runs until June 2011.
For a full listing of events and programmes throughout China and Australia visit:
www.imagineaustralia.net

* Picture: Jessica Mauboy sings My Island Home accompanied by William Barton on the didgeridoo. (Sophie Sun)