New College Choir in Shanghai and Beijing

The Choir are back in College and in form, following a highly successful inaugural two city tour in China over the New Year.

Starting in Shanghai, they performed music by English composers Matthias and Finzi, as well as Robert Quinney’s arrangements of Abba and a Chinese popular song, “The Moon Represents My Heart” which brought the house down.  After a visit to one of the water villages in Jiangsu, New Year’s Eve was celebrated on a boat on the Huangpu River, taking in the City’s amazing skyline.  The next day, the high-speed train whisked all to Beijing in just over four hours.  

The Beijing concert was held in the National Performing Arts Centre, the French architect Paul Andrieu’s famous “egg” next to the Forbidden City and China’s premier cultural venue.  The concert was a sell out with an audience of 2,000, and another rapturous reception. As Patrick Maxwell, choral scholar commented to a journalist, “it’s really fascinating and invigorating to be here for the first time and to show the kind of music we make in a new place”.

The Warden and the Development Director joined the party, and receptions were held for old members in both cities around the concerts.  At the Beijing reception the Warden commented: “our Choir started singing just 11 years after the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, and has been part of our collegiate life ever since.  It’s so gratifying to receive such an enthusiastic reception almost six and a half centuries later in China, of which our Founder would only have been dimly knowledgeable”.  On the last day, the Choir went to the Great Wall – and gave an impromptu concert there to the amazement of tourists on a beautifully clear winter’s morning.