Debra Li

debra_lidan@163.com

NAXI folk songs, Dai people’s Zhangha, and the wooden drum dance of ethnic Wa people are not something you can experience every day.

On Jan. 30, the Little Golden Tree Children’s Choir of Shenzhen Concert Hall performed a concert for Guangzhou fans alongside several prominent ethnic minority musicians, taking audience members on a journey to explore the beauty of diverse cultures and traditions carried on for generations. Collaborating at the concert were the Chanson de Montagne Multiethnic Children’s Choir and an ethnic Wa children’s choir.

Opening the concert was a number that creatively converges Ola Gjeilo’s “Days of Beauty,” with lyrics based on Emily Bronte’s poetry, and “Zai Yang Diao,” an ancient folk song sung by Naxi ethnic people as they plant rice seedlings in spring. The melodious tunes from the most celebrated composer in the choral world were spiced with an aura of ancient Oriental mystery, interpreted with the young singers’ crystal-clear voices.

The children then sang such familiar songs as “Lovely Spring,” “The Snowflake,” “Fairytale,” “Hope,” and “Xia Qiu Yao” (also known as “24 Solar Terms”), with which the Little Golden Tree won first place in the primary and middle school category at last year’s Shenzhen choral competition.

A highlight of the show was a song and dance performed by the ethnic Wa children. Accompanied by their traditional wooden drums and gongs, the children tapped their feet and tossed their black long hair to the strong rhythms as they sang “Sleep, Babe,” a number based on their folk music.

Duojiuyang, an ethnic Miao singer, performed a song in the traditional improvised style of her people. Ethnic Dai musicians Yan Wang and Yan Wanxiang then joined the children in a song based on their music form Zhangha, sung in their own language. Zhangha, a popular form of art among the Dai people in Yunnan Province as well as in neighboring countries including Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand, is a unique way of folk singing that combines storytelling. It’s often sung solo or by a duo somewhat similar to Chinese crosstalk.

The Little Golden Tree also performed original songs such as “Red Flowers, Blue Oceans” and “Love and Passion,” the theme song of a namesake popular 1982 Hong Kong TV series, in Cantonese.

Since its foundation in 2019, the Chanson de Montagne Multiethnic Children’s Choir and the Little Golden Tree Children’s Choir, a joint effort by Shenzhen Concert Hall and the Futian District Cultural Center, have won wide acclaim from music reviewers and the public as well.

The troupes have performed multiple concerts in the five short years of its history, collaborating with singer Gong Linna and others. Recently, these children also had a role in the performance of “Carmen,” a co-production by Shenzhen Opera and Dance Theater (SZODT) and Staatsoper Hamburg from Germany.

Their program, “Echoes of Traditions: Folk Music Charm — Multiethnic Children’s Choir in Concert,” has been staged and warmly received multiple times in various Chinese cities.

In August last year, the Little Golden Tree was invited to perform at the NCPA Chorus Festival in Beijing, becoming only the second children’s choir from Shenzhen to have the honor. The Lily Girls Choir, Shenzhen’s pride, which has won numerous awards at international singing competitions, graced the chorus festival in the summer of 2012.

Guo Liming, chairman of International Federation for Choral Music, lauds Shenzhen’s effort to bring together the ethnic children in the form of a choir. “Shenzhen is a tolerant city that embraces diversity,” he says, adding that offering these children the limelight and opportunity to see the world may encourage them to carry on their time-honored musical traditions.