World Choir Games Underway in S. China

The World Choir Games, held this year in southern China, are giving singers from all over the world the chance to share their music.

The competition, which officially opened last Friday in Zhejiang province's Shaoxing, is now in full swing.

Guanny Liu is in Shaoxing, and filed this report.

With the extravagant opening ceremony out of the way, it's now time to knuckle down and get to work.

Some of the teams came here with high hopes.

Larisa Erykalova, the conductor from the Nizhni Novgorod state university choir of Russia says their team will be putting their all into the competition.

"This is the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of our choir, so we decided to come here to this competition to celebrate the occasion. We've just come away with a gold medal from another choir competition in the UK, so we have high expectations for this competition."

Larisa Erykalova says it's the choir's first time in China.

Others are here more for the experience than anything else.

Jose Rocha Magańa is here with Coro Infantil Sinfonico, a group of children from Mexico.

"This chorus is a special one because it's not only an artistic project, it's a social project. And in that way all the kids are from different economy situations, so it's a social project too." "Are you guys excited to be here?" "Yeah!"

Jose Rocha Magańa says it took a long and arduous process to select the children.

And for others, the competition is a platform to share their passion with the world.

Dai Cheng, leader of the Changzhou Choir, says their focus is on Chinese songs of the 60s and 70s, which are about the founding of new China.

"These songs are the pride of the Chinese people. They are the spirit of the Chinese, they are our backbone. They represent the sacrifice of tens of thousands of people."

Dai Cheng says the average age of his choir members is 66 years, and their oldest member is 81 years old.

And for the volunteer staff, mostly local university students, the event is a great opportunity to better themselves.

"Especially my oral English, I hope that my skill can improve by communicating with others. What's more I think my ability to organize things can improve."

"Through this volunteer I can gain this new experience and I Know I can make more friends."

"During this period we will meet different people and learn to communicate with others and to deal with different situations. I think this will help us to improve the ability to solve the problems in the future."

The 2010 World Choir Games will end on July 24th.

This is Guanny Liu reporting for CRI from Shaoxing in Zhejiang.