Nanjing Uni traditional music group tours Canada
- Source: Xinhua
- [22:01 February 21 2011]
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No matter where you come from, music is a language everyone understands.
That was the message in the air in the auditorium of the Heritage Woods Secondary School in Port Moody, British Columbia Saturday night and at every concert given by the Nanjing University Traditional Instrument Student Orchestra over their recent two-week tour across Canada.
"Nowadays we often hear that we are living in a 'global village,' so cross-cultural communication is becoming more and more important and music is a great tool for this type of exchange," said Cheng Aimin, dean and professor of the Institute for International Students at Nanjing University.
The orchestra was founded in 1996 and utilizes such traditional Chinese instruments as erhu and pipa, with the goal of promoting traditional Chinese culture, popularizing the classical arts and giving students a well-rounded education.
Over the past 15 years, the orchestra has given over 400 performances of nearly 100 pieces of traditional Chinese music in cities around the globe, and has been invited to play at some of the world's most prestigious universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
Over the course of the Canadian tour, the orchestra visited six cities, including Montreal and Toronto.
"It was something new for me, even though I am from China myself," said George Cheng, an engineering student from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, who attended the concert with his family.
"I've never had a lot of opportunities to see this sort of thing, so it was definitely nice of them to come here and perform for us."
