The Night-Song of Yao Mountain

“Something about children’s music plays on the innocence and openness that children have. You can’t listen to kid’s music without a sense of wonder at the simplicity. I think children’s music is catchy precisely because it is about memory…”- Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky

If one ever needed to look for proof that Music is the Universal Language, listening to the sound of a children’s choir would instantly persuade you. The purity and innocence of children’s voices joined in song is a primal experience that is impossible to resist. And as many parents (and music lovers) will affirm, there is a comforting sense of familiarity in attending a performance by a children’s choir – listening to familiar folk songs, show tunes and popular melodies from the movies and a patriotic song or two – all in clever, age-appropriate arrangements – is an experience shared around the globe. And so it is with this new recording from the Beijing International Children’s Choir. However do not expect to hear “Shenandoah” or “It’s a Small World.”

Our program includes just 19 songs, but each little song takes us on a magical journey through China. We will hear the sounds of Hunan, Guizhou, Shandong, Hebei, Guangxi, and Beijing. We will watch the sunset from an isolated beach in Taiwan and visit isolated mountain villages in faraway Yunnan Province! We will meet many new friends from China’s colorful ethnic minorities and listen to the songs of the Yao, the Jing, the Tujia and the Han and the Koreans. We will travel through history and hear modern arrangements of timeless folksongs and nursery rhymes. We will also hear some of the most popular award winning songs written for children over the past 30 years and even learn the Chinese words to a popular 19^th century American song that became a hit in China!

The Beijing International Children’s Choir, comprised of students 9 to 16 years old, under the direction of award winning teacher and music educator Chen Qun have become international ambassadors of musical good will throughout Europe and Asia. This, their first recording for Rhymoi – and the first commercial recording to be made in Beijing’s famous National Centre for the Performing Arts - has been beautifully captured by master recording engineer Li Dakang, with post-production done by audiophile specialists, Stockfisch Records (Germany). All of us at Rhymoi Music hope that these little ambassadors of good will touch your heart as they sing to you in the universal language of music.