World-renowned music festival held in Suzhou

The Montreux Jazz Festival China opened on the shore of Jinji Lake in Suzhou on Friday, providing an audio-visual feast to jazz fans that flocked there and bridging the cultural exchange between the East and the West.

This is the third time for the event to be held in China, with this edition themed "When West Meets East".

Upward of 100 Chinese and foreign musicians staged more than 20 performances during the three-day event, covering various music styles such as jazz, rock, electronic music, and pop, creating a cultural feast for the audience.

"It's great to discover a small part of China, because in three days -- I won't see a lot, but I really like to see how Chinese people are enjoying music. Yesterday evening during the concert of 'Earth, Wind and Fire', everyone was dancing. It was really lively , and really nice to enjoy this music together. Through music, we can understand each other. Sometimes it's very difficult to understand each other through the languages, and also sometimes with cultural gap. But through music we gather everyone around the emotions and the pleasure to share this kind of moment. This is why we promote the cultural exchange, in Montreux in Switzerland and also here, of course, in Suzhou. So we are very happy, and we hope to, maybe, welcome emerging musicians from China in Montreux," said Viviane Rychner Raouf, secretary general of Montreux Jazz Artists Foundation.

The concert "Earth, Wind and Fire Experience" mentioned by Raouf was given by Al McKay, one of the world's best Rhythm and Blues groups, and it provided a swing party to spectators.

Swiss music promoter Claude Nobs, who died in 2013, founded the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967 and built it into an international festival and event platform for music lovers.

Since its creation, the festival under its slogan "Where Legends Are Born" has seen many iconic live music performances.

World-renowned music festival held in Suzhou

Twenty-nine survivors were found in the passenger plane crash in Aktau, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) reported.

An Embraer 190 aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines with flight number J2-8243 from Baku to Grozny crashed near Aktau Airport on Wednesday with a total of 67 people on board.

According to the MES, 482 people are involved in the rescue on site, as well as 97 pieces of equipment, two aircraft and four teams of search and rescue dogs.

A group of electric power workers near the crash site were among the first batch of rescuers, who said they helped save around 15 people at the scene.

"We saw the plane crash with our own eyes and quickly packed up to head to the scene for rescue. Later, personnel from the Ministry of Emergency Situations and hospital staff members arrived. About 10 of us went there. We brought a crane to help rescue people from the cabin," a rescuer said.

The emergency departments of Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan exchanged information via video conference.

According to Subkhonkul Rakhimov, a survivor of the crash, the plane suddenly rose rapidly and began to increase its altitude when it was about to land in Grozny. There was heavy fog at the time, and the crew tried to land the plane in Grozny three times, but all failed. An explosion occurred during the third attempt to land.

29 survivors rescued from plane crash in Kazakhstan