The Thursday night of March 18, 2021 at Dalian American International School was marked by the unique mixture of Chinese and Western cultures as Ms. Olga van Doorn and the whole Music Department welcomed us to the world of inspiration and artistic expression.
The theme of our instrumental concert was The Great Silk Road, and almost half of the event was focused on traditional and contemporary Chinese music. China, our host country, became the birthplace of the Great Silk Road 2000 years BC. The world we live in today is a product of the Great Silk Road. This ancient road helped shape languages, culture, technology, and the religions as we know them today.
The Great Silk Road stretched from East to West, and merchants travelled in caravans together with poets, philosophers, scholars, and pilgrims. This was the beginning of globalization where East and West exchanged their knowledge of technology, arts, and crafts. This exchange helped shape the history of the civilizations of Euro-Asian people.
People in China really love music. Music exists in one form or the other in every Chinese family, be it playing the traditional musical instrument, piano or violin, or singing from traditional Chinese songs to modern CPop. Many Chinese musicians and composers gained global fame. At our school, music also plays a special role. Students master their musical skills during classes and even beyond, and one of such talented students is Peter Zhang from Grade 10. At this concert, he conducted two of his own arrangements for the Big Band – Dance of the Yolo People, and Spring Festival.
Peter Zhang started his career in music four years ago. He played the trumpet in the school band, all while mastering his piano playing technique. At this time Peter also started to show interest in composition. With the guidance of Ms. Olga van Doorn, last year he passed AP Music Theory exam with flying colors.
Peter’s first attempts as a composer were cautious but quite meaningful. Last year one of his arrangements was performed during the class, and this year he finally went onstage. Peter wrote a few arrangements for famous Chinese musical pieces, and two of them were performed during this winter concert.
Another talent that he developed is conducting. As an aspiring band director, Peter easily acquired some basic conducting techniques and demonstrated his expression and musical sense during rehearsals. He built strong connection between the conductor and the band, which resulted in a huge success on stage.
Our students performed more than ten musical pieces during the concert, including compositions from Europe (Gloria by Antonio Vivaldi), Africa (Drum and Drummer by David Shaffer), Americas (Libertango by Astor Piazzolla), Russia (Adagio from Spartacus, a ballet by Aram Khachaturian) and China (Two Postcards from Beijing by Stephen Chin).
Grade 10 student Michelle Wang played solo the Impromptu In C Sharp Minor by Frederic Chopin and won a big round of applause. Other students also showed their exceptional talent during the performance – Evans Liang on flute, Tommy Cho and Raymond Bian on alto sax, Amy Zhang on cello, and many more. We would also like to give special thanks to our MC’s – Jasmine, Danny, Bryleigh, Raymond, Sandra, Kai, and Aman. They represented their home countries during the show and escorted us through the whole musical journey.
Congratulations to our band students for this excellent performance under the direction of Olga van Doorn and Peter Zhang! We will host another instrumental concert on May 27th, and hope to see you all again at DAIS.
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Please enjoy this video featuring some of the brightest moments of the Great Silk Road Concert.
