Overseas Chinese to join singing fest on Yellow River
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-21 19:01:52
TAIYUAN, May 21 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 500 overseas Chinese will attend the first international singing festival on the Yellow River, China's mother river, scheduled for June 10-12 in north China's Shanxi Province, said organizers of the event.
Among the overseas participants will be 300 chorus singers from Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Hong Kong and about 200 cheerleaders, officials of the organizing committee saidat a press conference Friday.
"All the overseas Chinese performers are from renowned chorusesabroad and some conductors used to perform in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Austrian Orchestra," said He Zhiyong, amember of the organizing committee. "They will join hundreds of local chorus singers to convey their love for the mother river."
The official said the event will be held at the Yellow River's Hukou Waterfall, which is where in 1939 Great Chinese musician Xian Xinghai composed "Yellow River Cantata," a household song in China that inspired the Chinese people to stand up against Japanese aggression.
He said the event is designed to mark the 60th anniversary of China's victory in its war against Japanese aggression, fought between 1937 and 1945, as well as the centennial of Xian's birth.
On the sideline of the singing festival will be a grand ceremony to mix water taken from eight provinces along the Yellow River into one big bottle, symbolizing the union of the Chinese nation.
The Yellow River, China's second longest waterway, originates in the mighty Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the northwest and runs 5,464 kilometers through nine provinces and autonomous regions before emptying into the Bohai Sea. It waters 12 percent of China's 1.3 billion people and 15 percent of its farmland.
Hukou Waterfall, located in a narrow, a precipitous gorge about46 km west of Jixian county seat in Shanxi Province, attracts millions of sightseers each year. Enditem |
