During his concert tour across seven Chinese cities in December 2023, Steve Barakatt, a Canadian-Lebanese composer and pianist, performed a piece titled Riding Around the Forbidden City every night. The Forbidden City, formally known as the Palace Museum, is the largest and best preserved ancient wooden palace complex in the world.
The ode to the structure that housed China’s emperors from 1421 to 1911 can be found on Barakatt’s 2011 album Someday Somewhere. The entire album was about visiting different places and creating music based on a specific location. Barakatt visited the Forbidden City in Beijing around 2010, on his first visit to the Chinese mainland.
“When I was in the “I think it’s one of the Chinese audience’s favorite pieces of music, they really enjoyed it.”
