Recently, over 400 students, including those from the Jing’an District Youth Center Xinglei Choir, Shanghai Jing’an Education College Affiliated School Sounds of Nature Choir, city-level student art troupe, and singing teams from various districts, participated in a concert showcasing excellent original campus songs at the 2024 Shanghai Spring International Music Festival.
On that day, the Jing’an District Youth Center Xinglei Choir performed an original piece titled “The Road of Childhood”, composed and written by Cheng Lu, a young teacher at the Center. She employed vocal sounds to mimic car horns with “beep beep” sounds and used syncopation along with quavers and rests to create a rhythm full of dynamic motion. Through this, she wanted to convey to the children that the road of childhood may have some bumps and turns, yet it’s marked by the joyful steps of the children’s journey home.
“Campus Changes” is a first-prize-winning piece from the 2022 Campus Song Competition. In this showcase, the Xinglei Choir reimagined their performance to depict the wonderful campus life for the audience once again. The children, brimming with vitality, narrated memories spanning three generations. They sang the charms of campus life to the bold and free waves of jazz music.
“Traffic Bang Cha-Cha” is a collaborative piece by Zeng Xiying, a music teacher at Shanghai Jing’an Education College Affiliated School, and her son, Cao Shengceng. The mother composed the music while her son wrote the lyrics, integrating daily traffic rules into the song. The waltz-style rhythm in triple time makes the melody lively and catchy. The song not only entertains but also teaches traffic safety and regulations through its lyrics.
It is reported that the concert of excellent original campus songs at the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival is a music platform for sharing, enjoying and integration, designed specifically for young students in Shanghai. It serves as a space for further promotion, popularization, and singing of outstanding original campus songs. All the pieces that made their appearance on the stage are original works by musicians, teachers, and youth. These songs aim to plant the seeds of beauty in the hearts of teenagers, creating a subtle but powerful form of spiritual influence. With their direct appeal, these songs allow teenagers to experience beauty and play an important role in moral education and cultivating good characters through aesthetics.