The First Session of International Chorus Art Forum of Shanghai Spring is Held in Shanghai Conservatory of Music 　　

Last afternoon, the first session of international chorus art forum : “ Chorus art and modern city life” is held in small hall of Shanghai Conservatory of music. Yan, Wang, the general inspector of music of this chorus art, and chorus conductors from all countries took part in this chorus week communicated the experience that how to train the chorus skill and improve the chorus quality of the city. It is said that this activity, together with citizen cultural festival, invited more than 30 chorus worker from grass root of communities to the site to “intimate contact” with professional conductors. Today, two heavyweight bands will take part in activities of citizen cultural festival, close to ordinary citizens.

The Chinese Chorus of One Hundred Years Call for The New Height

One hundred years ago, chorus spread to China from Europe. Shanghai, as the preferred landing port, is the origin of chorus of China.  Many “First” of chorus ‘s history began in Shanghai. In 1913, the chorus trilogy Spring Outing created by Shutong Li, represent the new era of history of China chorus, which just has been 100 years till 2013.

Shanghai, a city with a long tradition of chorus and a city loving chorus, has only 30 chorus groups left at the beginning of reform and opening up. Nowadays, Shanghai witnesses a chorus boom, not only with 160 registered chorus groups but with thousands of grass-root chorus organizations and ten thousands of aperiodic chorus activities. However, as Yan Wang said on site, “China is a big country of chorus, but not a country of strong chorus”. Bai Xiao, a famous conductor and composer, also believe that city chorus calls for a new height with the fast development of the city. Some great metropolis in the world have their own chorus groups which is presentable, such as the Chanticleer chorus group of San Francisco, Vox Gaudiosa indoor chorus group of Tokyo so on and so forth.” The plan and development of chorus should go synchronously with the urban development of Shanghai.”

This chorus festival is also an important activity of citizen cultural festival. On the very day of forum, besides that famous conductors from all over the world gathered together to share experience, over 30 conductors engaged in the work of grass-root culture of communities from various districts and counties also came for drawing on experience. Yeying Xiao, Curator of Shanghai Mass Art Center told the journalist that the content of chorus in previous mass culture tended to be repeated with monotonous forms. The singing mode is mainly loud unison, and the artistic and professional requirements are not very high. The sub-part training and the harmony skill are the weak link in the mass chorus, and the level of the grassroots workers first needs to be improved. Though the choral and conducting technology on this forum are too professional for ordinary citizens, we also hope it can open the vision of grass-root workers and make them be interested in studying this art.

There are various choral activities of the chorus week in the citizen cultural festival, and many famous international choruses are invited to interact with citizens in the community. This afternoon, Viipuri Male Choir from Finland together with Institution Chorus of Pudong New District made an exchange performance in the theater of Youth Activity Center in Pudong New District, which name is “Fragrant Pujiang- exchange performance of Viipuri Male Choir from Finland together with Shanghai Pudong Chorus.” Moscow “Spring” Girls chorus from Russia will go to Youth City of Putuo District to perform for students and residents.

The Conductors Establish Their Authority by Professional Knowledge

In the flourishing development of Chinese chorus career, the absence of professional conductor is the important reason that chorus cannot improve. In forum, Yan Wang and conductors from all over the world discussed the chorus art freely, with background of the unsmooth English and music. 

Clemens Bergman, the conductor of Germany’s Hamburg Choir Musica Viva, mainly shared with us the charm of a conductor and the charm’s source in rehearsal. People generally accepted that the more harmonious and closer the relationship between the conductor and the chorus members is, the better the artistic effect of performance is. However, in Clemens’ point of view, the higher the artistic quality of a chorus is, the less important whether the conductor is loved by people is, because what matters more is his or her authority and ability to lead the chorus. Accordingly, Bergman classified the powers of a conductor into four categories: the power of a specialist (or the power to distinguish), the power of affirmation, the power of information and the power of classics. Among them, the most important is the power of a specialist (or the power to distinguish), that is to say the conductor usually reveals the superb artistic creativity and skills from the perspective of a musician, for that the conductor’s professional knowledge is the main foundation of his or her authority. What is more, in terms of the specific rehearsal skills, Bergman proposed to boldly do more voice training without the accompaniment of piano.

Conductor Agnè Sarnouville and his Estonian TV Girls Choir performed the daily voice training on site. When the beautiful girls from east European started to sang, every audience on site is astonished. Agnè Introduced that half of the choir’s member are university students and another half of the choir’s member are high school students. Many people in them are trained by him from four or five years old. In the chorus training, individual guidance weights much. He think, when the child is very young, it is unnecessary to give them very professional vocal music training and the most important thing is to teach them to love music.

Also being spot demonstration. Finlandia sang on site by Finnish Viipuri Male Choir, whose members has visual average age of over 60 years old, brought audience completely different feeling. Upp Rauhala, the Finnish chorus conductor, compare himself to “ chameleon “ and he said “Change” is his way to survive. He said, Finland geographically is surrounded by strong neighbor countries. How to break through the strong cultural influence from German, Russia and so on, and how to find the cultural identity of Finland herself, are always very complex problems. It is lucky that , in this process, some preeminent music composers were born in Finland such as Sibelius. They wrote a batch of excellent chorus works. Finnish people practice their own culture tradition step by step by performing these works.