COOL CHOIR
Miao musicians from Yunnan province will perform with the New York Philharmonic during Spring Festival. Chen Jie reports.
It was incredible that a group of farmers were singing hymns in the Miao language.”
Yu Long, conductor
Zhang Molyu was driving home on Sunday morning with purchases for Spring Festival that falls later this week.
In Xiaoshuijing, Fumin county, Southwest China’s Yunnan province, his fellow villagers, most from the Miao ethnic community, were also busy with preparations for the Chinese New Year.
Zhang Qiongxian, his neighbor, was cleaning and decorating her house over the weekend.
This is a special time for both Zhangs as they will be spending a part of Spring Festival away from home for the first time.
On Feb 20, they will join the prestigious New York Philharmonic to perform at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at a special concert to celebrate the traditional New Year.
“It will be our first performance outside China. So I am very excited but feel the pressure as well,” Zhang Molyu, 34, the lead singer of the Xiaoshuijing Farmers’ Choir, tells China Daily by phone.
“My grandma said we must sing well, because we are representing the Miao people and we are also representing China.”
Zhang Molyu was sent to learn singing in church at the age of 14, because his parents wanted him to learn more after school.
“Nobody from our village has been out of China. I feel so lucky and appreciate the opportunity,” said Zhang Qiongxian, 31.
Fumin county lies in the mountains 32 kilometers north of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. British missionary Samuel Pollard (1864-1915) arrived there to promote Christianity. He found the local Miao people’s style of group singing in dialogues a natural fit for a choir. He translated some hymns in English into the Miao language or Mandarin and taught the villagers to sing.
The tradition has been passed down for generations. Now about 80 percent of the 500 or so residents of the village follow Christianity.
Long Guangyuan, 48, conductor of the choir, says young people about 14 or 15 years old have started to learn choir singing. They practice every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the evenings and sing at the local church every weekend.
“We used to sing as a way to relax or entertain ourselves after working in our fields. Around 2002, artists from outside found us and started to invite us to perform in Kunming, Guangzhou (Guangdong province) and Beijing,” says Long.
Yu Long, who will conduct the concert in the United States, says: “I was deeply impressed by their voice. It was incredible that a group of farmers were singing hymns in the Miao language.”
Last year, Yu invited the choir to perform at the closing gala of the Beijing Music Festival with the China Philharmonic Orchestra and Maxim Vengerov. On Dec 31, they also joined the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra to perform the New Year concert under the baton of Yu.
In New York, they will sing Beethoven’s grand Choral Fantasy and Chinese folk song Flowing Stream.
Besides the farmers’ choir, the Chinese New Year concert in New York will include another interesting work, Ricochet, featuring pingpong champions, violinists and percussionists.
Composed by American composer Andy Akiho, 38, the Pingpong Concerto premiered in Shanghai in 2015. It is a piece that commemorates the pingpong diplomacy between the US and China in the early 1970s that paved the way for then-US president Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing.
At the upcoming concert, New York Philharmonic violinist Elizabeth Zeltser and two real pingpong players, Michael Landers and Ariel Hsing, will stage Ricochet.
It is the seventh year that Yu is conducting the New York Philharmonic to play at a Spring Festival concert at the Lincoln Center. Yu has introduced a Chinese flavor each year: Pianist Lang Lang, boy and girl bands from the Inner Mongolia and Tibet autonomous regions, Peking Opera artist Wang Yan, Yo-Yo Ma, and contemporary composers such as Tan Dun.
“It has been an unusual experience to celebrate Spring Festival with Chinese artists and New York Philharmonic in New York for the last seven years. As a musician I feel honored and believe that it’s meaningful to play with worldrenowned orchestras,” Yu says.
“Music goes beyond boundaries to help people communicate with each other. It’s my way to promote Chinese culture,” he adds.
Before New York, Yu will conduct the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra at a concert in Zurich on Feb 15, featuring Chinese composer Li Huanzhi’s Spring Festival Overture, the best-known Chinese violin concerto Butterfly Lovers and Peking Opera symphony The Drunk Concubine.
After New York, he will visit London for a concert with the British Philharmonic Orchestra on March 1. The Xiaoshuijing Farmers’ Choir will also sing at the London concert.