'Healing Together' online concert sends 'Go Shanghai' message amid lockdown

An online concert presented on Friday afternoon by young musicians and international students from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music cheered people up amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

The "Healing Together, Go Shanghai" concert featured live jazz pieces, piano, Bayan and vibraphone performances, as well as songs, including "I Love You, China" and "We are the World."

The concert was organized by the local conservatory, the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and other parties to draw the powerful force of music to pull all hearts "together to the future" in these difficult times.

South Korean students Kim Esther, majoring in piano, and Song Eunchae, a composition major, jointly performed two piano pieces – "Hungarian Dances No. 5" and "Micmacs A la gare."

Both live in a dormitory on the conservatory's branch campus on Lingling Road in Xuhui District.

The roommates said the new semester started on March 6 but their university quickly entered closed-loop management due to the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"So we haven't left the campus for long, which also pushed us to learn cooking as we have a kitchen in the dorm building," Kim revealed. "We learned from YouTube videos and have cooked Korean dishes such as kimchi fried rice and soybean paste soup."

They also created a vlog to record their life on campus.

"When filming the videos, we also made new friends, so it's quite interesting," Song noted.

Over the previous two weeks, they could walk around on campus, go to piano rooms for practice and take other courses online.

But now, the whole of Shanghai's Puxi area, on the western side of the Huangpu River, has entered the phased lockdown. So, they have to stay in the dorm building with packed meals delivered at their doorstep.

Both Kim and Song said they have caught up with Chinese cuisine, having lived in the city for years as their fathers work here.

Though they cannot leave their dorm building now, the duo are not worried as they have a lot of classes to take and plenty of homework to do.

When they heard from their teacher that there would be a concert online for people affected by the pandemic, they agreed to play two piano pieces with four hands.

They practiced for five hours to record the performance which was played during the concert on Friday.

"I hope our music will bring a little bit of relaxation and joy to people feeling tired under the pandemic," Song remarked.

"With the music, I hope we will have the confidence to overcome the pandemic soon," added Kim.

The conservatory's Voice of the World Choir, with 27 members from 13 countries and regions, sang the well-known song "We are the World," conducted by Montealegre Carvajal Edwin Roberto from Costa Rica.

Roberto enrolled into the university in 2019 and returned home for the winter vacation at the beginning of 2020 before the pandemic broke out. When he tried to come back, flights were cancelled due to global travel restrictions, which pushed him to stop his studies for a year. He later resumed his course by taking classes online but with a time difference of 14 hours.

It's not the first time that Roberto and his choir members have performed the song. Two years ago, when the whole world was on hold due to the pandemic, he and his friends used band lab to produce the work online.

Being in different countries, the choir members recorded their own parts and put them together.

It was challenging. Take the piano part for example. The pianist was in Malaysia, so after she sent the audio to Roberto, he had to check every detail of the audio. He tried his best to locate every detail – he even found a 12-second delay – so that she could improve and give a better version.

It took them almost a month to produce a video of the performance. But their efforts paid off and the video became widely popular after it was released in July last year.

Roberto said the song perfectly carries the message of being together.

"It's a message I want to send: that even when we have differences, we need to be together because it's the only way to overcome all the troubles that humanity has in this moment," he declared.

"Because if we keep fighting against each other, it will be even harder to overcome such situations."

Roberto revealed that his group is preparing another song – "Heal the world" – which is expected to be released later with the same message.

Friday's concert attracted tens of thousands of spectators, with many leaving messages like "Thank you, Shanghai Conservatory of Music! Go, Shanghai!"

Jeon Yeseul, a South Korean Ph. D student at Fudan University, said she is a linguistic major but loves music. Having played the piano and violin since childhood, she is now a member of Fudan's string orchestra.

She was happy to attend Friday's concert. "The music of the world embraces the world. This is what I felt after watching the concert," Jeon gushed, adding that she loved every part of the event.

"The last song, 'There Are So Many People in the World,' made me cry," she stated.

"This concert really made me feel like everyone is one in any country on Earth. I am also an international student who loves China and the world. We are the world, stay strong. Support Shanghai. Have fun and win together!"

Narantsatsral Khongorzul, also a Fudan linguistic major from Mongolia, said she was stunned to watch such a great concert during the lockdown.

She loved the jazz piece "Reunion" the most as it reflects people's wish to reunite after the pandemic.

"All the medics, disease control staff, grassroots personnel and volunteers are working hard to fight against the virus in Shanghai now," she pointed out. "I hope music can bring everybody hope and confidence. Let's be together and overcome the situation as soon as possible."