As the seventh International Schools Choral Music Society (ISCMS) festival came to a close, the organization’s founder Shane O’Shea announced to the 350 young musicians on the stage: "I am humbled by you."

He said so with good reason. The final gala concert at the Forbidden City Concert Hall was a display of awe-inspiring musicality, made infinitely more impressive by the fact that the performers were all of school age. Hosted by Dulwich College Beijing, the event saw the most talented performers from across Asia’s international schools perform a challenging program lasting almost two hours.

With just a few days to rehearse together the orchestra could be forgiven for slight hiccups, but it instead opened with a note-perfect and suitably menacing rendition of Mussorgsky’s "Night on Bald Mountain."

What was to follow was perhaps more astounding. Because the multi-faceted and complex piece that concluded the first half of the concert was composed by a student, Gordan Yam. His piece "Rise of the Trolls" conjured images of Lord of the Rings not only with its name but with the epic trumpet calls and marching drums that wove throughout the composition.

After the interval, a full choir joined the orchestra on a packed stage to perform Haydn’s "Nelson Mass," before Grammy Award-winning musician Christopher Tin took the stage. Conducting a world premiere performance of his composition "Temen Oblak", the powerful piece earned him the biggest cheer of the night.

The audience, this writer included, was left as humbled by the evening as the ISCMS director. The gala concert was genuinely brilliant performance from some of the most talented young musicians you are likely to encounter. If you missed it this time round the festival will, after heading to Shanghai and Singapore for the next two years, return to Beijing in 2017.  

Photos by Ken

It had been years since I attended a show with a live symphony orchestra – even longer since I listened to a decent choral performance. So when we had a chance to attend the International Schools Choral Music Society (ISCMS) gala concert, the whole family decided it was a good idea. We wanted to see the over 400 musicians and singers on stage, but I was equally curious about what kind of music hall sits within the confines of the former imperial garden where the Emperor used to relax, the beautiful Zhongshan Park. It is the kind of place I had been meaning to explore and finally we would get to do so at night.

The concert hall itself was quite interesting and the acoustics were excellent. The stage was literally packed to bursting with performers and instruments and the first half of the concert went off without a hitch. That is except for the squirming child that was being disruptive – isn’t there always one at a concert? Unfortunately, this time it was my child. When there was finally a break between musical pieces, we decided to duck out early to spare the audience members around us from further distraction. We did not realize at the time that she was coming down with a cold and that was the real cause of her uneasiness.

As we walked through the quiet, nearly empty park, trying to retrace our steps along the dimly-lit pathways, our little girl commented that she had dreamed about the park before. “Baba, it’s a dream come true. I remember it now. This place is so beautiful.” Indeed, it was. Although I was quite impressed with the mechanics of 400+ people working in unison to create a musical experience, it was the calm of the gardens and the silent majesty of the imperial temples in the dark that left a lasting impression on us.

Photo by Kara Chin