Sarah Brightman to Headline Closing Ceremony at 2013 Beijing Film Festival, April 23

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Broadway star and singer Sarah Brightman will headline the closing ceremony of the 2013 Beijing International Film Festival on April 23 at the China National Convention Center. The festival kicks off on April 15.

Read the original report here.

Other celebrity attendees at the festival will include the casts of Iron Man 3, The Man of Tai Chi, Kathleen Kennedy, Luc Besson, Jackie Chan, Zhang Ziyi and more.

The festival will feature the announcement of the Tiantan Award, selected from 15 entries, as well as screenings of 264 films, among them 2013 Academy Award nominee for best picture Amour, all of the Harry Potter films and the restored version of Lawrence of Arabia.

Sarah Brightman's new album "Dreamchaser" will be released worldwide this month. It will be available in the US and Canada on April 16th and, for the rest of the world, the release date is April 8th.

Following the "Dreamchaser" album release, Sarah is heading out on her international tour beginning in China this June.

In October 2012, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA star also announced that she will be travelling into space in 2014 or 2015 for ten days on a voyage that will take her to the International Space Station. At the completion of her 5-continent, 100-city tour, Brightman will go straight into 6 months of training before her space flight.

Brightman's West End debut was at the age of 13 in "I and ALbert". She orginated the role of PHANTOM's Christine in London and in New York. Brightman has also appeared on the West End in Nightingale and Cats, as well as the Broadway production of Aspects of Love in 1990.

Over the past two and a half decades, Sarah Brightman has distinguished herself as the world's biggest selling soprano of all time with global sales reaching over 30 million units. She has received more than 180 gold and platinum awards in over 40 countries. Brightman pioneered the classical crossover music movement and is the only artist to have simultaneously topped the Billboard dance and classical music charts.

Brightman was married to composer Andrew-Lloyd Webber from 1984 to 1990. She has recorded a number of solo albums, including 1988's The Trees They Grow So High, 1989's The Songs That Got Away, 1990s As I Come of Age, 1993's Dive, 1995's Fly, and 1998's Eden. And recent ones like La Luna (2001) Harem (June, 2003), Symphony (2008), A Winter Symphony (2008) and the upcoming Dreamchaser (2013).

For more about the festival, visit www.bjiff.com.