National Centre for the Performing Arts welcomes the public to its anniversary events, Chen Nan reports.

It was early in the morning one Friday when the capital's Chang'an Avenue was already busy with heavy traffic. At the National Centre for the Performing Arts near Tian'anmen Square, a crowd was already forming.

These people were not just regular tourists visiting the iconic venue where musicians and artists from around the world come and perform. They were going to the venue's annual open day on Dec 22, to mark the center's 16th anniversary.

People entered the north-to-south entrance galleries, which led to the venue's major auditoriums. Throughout the day, various activities took place at different parts of the center, such as the resident singers performing arias from classic operas, musicians from the NCPA Orchestra playing popular pieces and dancers displaying their well-honed technique.

"I have been participating in the NCPA's open day event since 2009.It feels like celebrating my birthday whenever I come here on Dec 22," says Jin Li, who arrived at the venue at 8 am.

"We brought our 2-year-old daughter with us, letting her enjoy the celebration of art," says a young mother surnamed Yang, who came here with her husband and daughter. The couple used to participate in the open day event before becoming parents.

At 9 am, the resident singers opened the celebration with the song, Happy Birthday to You, which was followed by more songs, such as the popular aria, Drinking Song, from Verdi's opera La Traviata.

Inside the concert hall, musicians from the China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra performed works featuring a diversity of traditional musical instruments, such as A Moonlit Night on the Spring River, a pipa (a four-stringed plucked lute) piece of the Chinese classical repertoire, named after a Tang Dynasty (618-907) poem by Zhang Ruoxu, and Hundreds of Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix, a suona (a double-reed woodwind instrument) piece.