Music fest wraps up with familiar melodies, increased audience numbers
The 2023 Music in the Summer Air (MISA) festival wrapped up on Thursday with familiar melodies that many Chinese grew up singing in schools and watching on TV.
The closing concert featured 82-year-old pianist Yin Chengzong, whose slightly trembling steps onto the stage were belied by his stable hands on the piano, which impressed the many audience members in the concert hall and watching the livestreaming.
Yin, one of the creators of the famous "Yellow River Concerto," premiered the piece in 1970. On Thursday evening, Yin played the concerto again with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.
"I used to play with the symphony in the 1980s, and every time I came back to Shanghai, I would see some of my classmates playing here," Yin told Shanghai Daily before the closing concert, adding that some of the musicians are almost 60 years younger than he is. "Now, they are the children or even grandchildren of my classmates.
"We didn't expect the concerto to become so famous and be heard by so many people for so many years. I still get copyright reports every year ― it's been played in more than 50 countries and regions."
The stable hands of 82-year-old Yin Chengzong impress the audience.
Praises came pouring in. The New York Times after a concert in 1983, said in its review that Yin "blazed through the piano part with utter abandon and virtuosity."
The second half of the closing concert continued with familiar songs including "Let Us Swing the Oars ― Listen to Mum's Stories," which was originally created as the theme song of the 1955 children's film "Flowers of Our Motherland." With catchy melodies and poetic lyrics, the song outlived the film and has been sung by generations of Chinese children.
The concert wrapped up the festival that had further reached out to larger audiences this year, with more outdoor venues, and young musicians going to the city's landmarks to perform for the public.
Over two weeks, MISA attracted more than 26,000 live audience members to its two indoor and two outdoor venues.
"MISA is a music party," concluded Zhou Ping, head of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. "We hope that both residents and visitors in Shanghai have enjoyed the joy and affection from classic music."
Yin Chengzong (right) won the second-prize of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962.
In 1969, Yin and a group of musicians rearranged the "Yellow River Cantata" composed by Xian Xinghai (1905-1945) in Yan'an in 1939, during the second Sino-Japanese war. The concerto gained worldwide fame when the Philadelphia Orchestra became the first American orchestra to visit the People's Republic of China and performed the concerto, also featuring Yin on piano, under the baton of Eugene Ormandy.
A year earlier, Yin played "Home on the Range," a piece from Richard Nixon's hometown, for the then-US president on his historical visit to China.
"The creative process of the concerto never ended," Yin recalled. "The way and emotions of playing this piece evolve."
He gave the example of the second movement, which includes the opening motif from the Chinese national anthem, the lyrics for the opening was "stand up."
"When we played it back then, there was a feeling and hope of 'standing up.' Now, we have stood up," he said proudly.
The music festival has attracted more than 26,000 live audience members to its two indoor and two outdoor venues.
