On the evening of August 2nd, the Beijing Philharmonic Choir gave a colourful performance under the baton of choral conductor YANG Hongnian. In the week to come, eight choirs from China, the United Kingdom, Austria and Slovenia will offer audiences a gorgeous feast of choruses.
YANG Hongnian & the Beijing Philharmonic Choir
Photo by NIU Xiaobei
The NCPA August Chorus Festival, established in 2009, has grown into a brand in the professional choral circle of summer. This year, themed “Ode to Youth”, the Festival is attended by well-known Chinese and foreign teenagers’ choirs, with different styles of songs created by different schools or in different countries in a beautiful voice in homage to passionate and brilliant youth.
The little singers gave a colourful percformance
Photo by NIU Xiaobei
In the opening performance, the Beijing Philharmonic Choir drew the outline of a golden childhood in a melting voice. 2018 marks the 35th anniversary of the founding of YANG Hongnian Choir and at the special concert, YANG Hongnian, aged 84, was present, where he and the singers paid homage to youth in the form of chorus art. The concert kicked off with a popular song in China - Let Us Paddle. Hearing the beautiful melody of A Pastoral Song and Water Hen, the audience seemed to walk into the vast prairie. In the second half, the chorus sang classic foreign choruses, including Beautiful Future, the theme song of Soviet children’s film Visitor from the Future. The deeply touching melody revealed the children’s yearning for a better future. The performance of demanding classics, such as Flight of the Bumble Bee, showed the choir’s strength.
Conductor YANG Hongnian
Photo by NIU Xiaobei
On August 3rd, Tiankong Choir held a special concert to mark the 15th anniversary of its founding by singing different styles of choruses such as Song of Fishing Light, Legend and Excerpt from Peking Opera The Drunken Beauty - The Ice Wheel on the Island Starts Turning. On August 4th, Opera Troupe of the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater will perform a number of well-known classic songs such as The River of No Return, By The Lake Baikal and Legend. On August 5th, Trinity Boys Choir will sing masterpiece Where’er You Walk, “tango originator” Piazzolla’s Libertango, and traditional British song Scarborough Fair, to indulge audience in their choral singing. On August 7th-10th, The KGBL Chamber Choir, China NCPA Chorus, Vienna Girls’ Choir and Oxford College Choir make the NCPA a sea of singing in August.
At this year’s August Chorus Festival there are not only exquisite choral concerts, but also various activities held by the NCPA as it had done before, such as open classes in choral singing offered by artists from home and abroad, choirs’ face-to-face meetings with audience, and workshops.
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