Eight-year-old Xu Ziqi was the youngest singer at the G20 Summit evening gala held on Sunday night at West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. The Hangzhou second grader sang “Me and My Motherland” with renowned baritone Liao Changyong at the gala. Li Jun, Xu’s mother, said both Xu and her were a little surprised “that the chance came so suddenly.” “On August 13, I received a call from a teacher at the Hangzhou Youth Activity Center and they asked Ziqi to go for an audition to perform at the summit. About 20 girls attended the audition, most of them having previously won awards at various musical competitions in Hangzhou. Ziqi was the youngest. At the end, Ziqi and two other girls were asked to prepare ‘Me and My Motherland’ and to attend the final round of auditions on August 15. She had never heard this song before and was only given a day to prepare, so it was quite a challenge for her,” Li recalled. When the mother arrived at the final audition with her daughter, she was even more surprised to see the director of the evening gala — award-winning Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The three girls performed “Me and My Motherland” with the backing of an orchestra. In the end, Zhang selected Xu. Zhou Yi, a music teacher at the public school Xu attends, was confident her student would perform outstandingly. “Xu Ziqi has a solid background in singing. I always ask her to demonstrate for everyone during our music classes. Whenever we need a lead singer, Ziqi was always a compelling choice,” said Zhou. Not only does Xu excel in vocals, she is well-rounded and an A-level student in drawing, Chinese and mathematics. “Ever since Ziqi started to attend kindergarten at age 3, we enrolled her in many classes, including acting, dancing, gymnastics and painting. She especially loves to sing and dance, so we enrolled her in individual lessons, which she still attends. She has performed on several hundred occasions. Some were competitive in nature, and others were not,” added Li. (China Daily) . | 