The 10th China International Chorus Festival, which took place in Beijing, showed many highlights, according to Michael J. Anderson, one of the competition judges at the festival and president of the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM).
Anderson said he would like the international chorus summits and forums, the brand program of IFCM, to be held in China in 2012.
Introducing Chinese culture abroad needs not only to change the way works are presented but to improve the quality of the artworks themselves, according to Liu Xuefeng, artistic director of the festival, and Wang Hongbo, communication director of China Arts ﹠ Entertainment Group, one of the festival hosts.
Choral music of nationalism that was used to inspire the nation during the anti-imperialist wars of the 1920s to the 1940s is quite popular in current China.
“Grass-roots choirs could often be found in parks and many other places,” Wang said.
However, some people still believe singing choral music means singing together with the same pitch. And the numbered musical notation, a musical notation system, is still widely used among the Chinese people, which has been out of use in Western countries for a long time because of its lack of precision.
“To improve the skills of domestic choirs is one of the reasons that we started this festival,” said Wang.
Quality was indeed highlighted at the festival. During the choir competitions, scores were shown to the competitors as well as to the audience. Also, the judges had to comment on the performances of some selected contestants, according to Liu.
A forum on current problems in domestic choirs was organized at the festival, during which, the widely used numbered musical notation in China was believed to be the main reason that the level of Chinese choirs lag behind Western ones.
“We should consider how to present our works in international culture exchanges. Change the way it’s used at home is a must,” said Wang.
China Arts ﹠ Entertainment Group, directly under the administration of the Ministry of Culture, has toured Europe to perform Women General of the Yang Family, a typical Beijing Opera. Before the beginning of their performance, performers did their make-up in the lobby of the theater, which aroused great interest among the foreign audience. Their performance achieved great success.
“For me, quality of the artworks should be the most important thing,” Liu said, adding that he believed that although there was no set norm for high-quality artworks in China, achieving the basic level was at least a requirement for good artworks.
By Dong Lin and Wang Xinyu
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