Orchestra event a celebration of traditional Chinese music
Officials strike a gong to kick off the 15th Yangtze River Delta National Orchestra Performance.
More than 4,500 students of 92 orchestras from home and abroad showed off their skills in traditional Chinese musical instruments during the Yangtze River Delta National Orchestra Performance.
The event, initiated in 2004, is organized to promote traditional Chinese music.
Wang Yongde, an erhu performer and traditional Chinese music educator, said the event has helped save some vanishing musical varieties, such as a kind of opera accompanied by gongs and drums from Songjiang District.
“Unlike other operas with gong and drum accompaniment, which are usually very noisy, the Songjiang opera is unique as its characters talk quietly,” he said. “We had never seen it before, but now the opera is being taught in local schools and being passed on.”
Shanghai now has more than 100,000 students learning to play traditional Chinese instruments, according to the Shanghai Education Commission.
The event has become influential beyond the delta region too. This year, orchestras from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Guizhou provinces of China, as well as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and the Philippines staged performances at the Yangpu District Children’s Palace and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Experimental School.
During the event, more than 80 masters and teachers from home and abroad shared their thoughts on the role of music in passing on traditional culture.
