Photo: Courtesy of China National Traditional Orchestra

 

Photo: Courtesy of China National Traditional Orchestra

 
On Friday, the China National Traditional Orchestra brought a concert featuring the Great Wall to audiences in Beijing at the China National Center for Performing Arts, which aims at promoting the construction of the Great Wall national cultural park and at deepening the audiences’ understanding of the ancient relic.

The Great Wall-themed concert debuted in 2021 and this year, after consulting experts and scholars, collecting feedback from fans, and going through several creative sessions, rehearsals and compositions, the structure of the concert has been rearranged to include two classic pieces and four new creations.

All music performed used rhythm and notes to display the marvelous scenery of the Great Wall and reconstruct the historical pictures of the Great Wall.

Musical pieces such as Hebei and Inner Mongolian folk songs were integrated together, showing the ethnic and cultural variety that have been handed down through time and music for thousands of years inside and outside the Great Wall. The performance evoked the historical memory of ethnic integration and presented a beautiful picture of the multi-cultural unity among different Chinese ethnic groups.

The plan of building of a Great Wall national park was put forward in 2019, as the marvelous architecture is a cultural and spiritual totem for Chinese people.

Zhao Cong, head of the orchestra, said that the choice of the Great Wall as the theme of the concert was made to restore the spirit of the Great Wall through traditional musical instruments and to create a number of Great Wall-themed musical pieces that can truly represent their era.