Chinese folk music concert bridges cultures in Nairobi

Detailed summary

A concert featuring traditional Chinese musical instruments took place in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday as part of the Kenya International Theatre Festival. The performance brought together leading Chinese folk instrumentalists and vocalists, showcasing traditional Chinese instruments including the guqin, erhu, zhongruan, and suona.

Ma Xinming, head of the Chinese delegation and executive vice-chairman of the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, said the performance would help create more opportunities for artistic collaboration as China and Africa celebrate the Year of People-to-People Exchanges this year. He welcomed African artists to perform in Beijing, noting that the delegation had performed in South Africa last year and would travel to Ethiopia after its engagements in Kenya.

"Music transcends national borders," Wu Bixia, a renowned Chinese soprano, said. She performed The River Flows Clear, a Yunnan folk song about love, which she said she had introduced to audiences in many countries, including the United States and Spain, where it had been warmly received.

Opening of the article, excerpted from China Daily. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.