Likes
South China Normal University (SCNU) was awarded five gold medals in the Grand Prix of Nations Gothenburg 2019 & 4th European Choir Games. Notably, the women choir defeated several famous European choirs, only second to the Norwegian choir with just 0.1 point difference. All other participating choirs of SCNU won gold medals of the Top Level with scores of over ninety in every category of the competition.
"It is particularly touching and strongly shocking," professor Ren Baoping, a famous conductor and the only one Chinese expert among the seven, highly praised the show. "This is a leap in quality of the SCNU choir." The famous Chinese composer Liu Xiaogeng echoed Ren's views.
The mixed choir of SCNU stood out among the 171 choirs and 6,400 singers from 47 nations and regions with three gold medals in two Youth Choirs categories and the category of Musica Sacra with accompaniment. At hearing that they were awarded gold medals, they waved the tiny Chinese national flags that SCNU students shared with them and shouted “China! China!”
Two original works, “In the Cloud” written by youth composer Pan Xingzimin from the School of Music of SCNU and “The Alley in the Rain” created by Xia Yanbin. Furhermore, three classical songs, “Let my love be heard”, “With a Lily in your hand” and “The conversion of saul” were beautifully performed by the choir with exquisite emotions, excellent skills and tacit cooperation in Category GP2. The judges and the audience were touched, rewarding them lasting applause in return.
“The result was satisfying,”The incumbent art director and permanent cantor professor Su Yanhui said.“I guess ourmixed choir might rank 180th in the first thousand choirs in the world ranking with such achievements.”
All their hard work has paid off. Three months before the competition, the choir members squeezed every spare minute to practice. Either teachers or members were under great pressure when preparing themselves due to the heavy tasks and limited time. They also have to overcome the language obstacle since the songs included a number of languages, such as Latin, English and German. In addition, one of the instructors was entrusted to be the conductor of the choir in one of the categories of the competition just several days before it. It was a demanding job that they were required to coordinate with each other in such a short time.
Li Chen Zhuoyao, a student of the School of Music of SCNU who has served as the head of the men’s choir, has witnessed the rapid improvement of the SCNU choir. He said: “The meaning of ‘sing what you think’ is that we all try our best to spread our love to a distant place with awe to music and chorus.”
The SCNU Choir is known for it’s representation of the highest level of chorus art education in Guangdong Province. It has won more than sixty gold medals in provincial-level or national-level competitions and nearly twenty gold medals in international contests since it was founded. In this international game, they not only competed with top choirs for the gold medals, but also showed the charm of China to the world.
Source from the News Center, Publicity Department
Translated by Zhou Meiyan
Proofread by Edwin Baak
Edited and reviewed by Li Jianru
What to read next:
