Dong Singers, a band of six members from southwestern China's Guizhou province, takes part in the International Festival of Vocal Music in Leipzig, Germany, in May. Photo provided to China Daily
An old Dong saying goes, "singing nurtures the heart just as rice nourishes the body".
So it's no surprise the ethnic group from Southwest China's Guizhou province has always been notable for its traditional choir.
Dong Singers, a six-member vocal group from Guizhou, took part in the International Festival of Vocal Music－a cappella, held from May 7-16 in Leipzig, Germany.
During the festival, the singers－all farmers from Liping county－performed to a full house at the Evangelisch Reformierte Church.
The musical tradition is called kgal laox in the Dong language and known in English as "grand song of the Dong people".
"There was no amplification, and the natural reverberation in the church sounded very much like that in the mountains where the singers come from," Mu Qian, a performing art curator who organized the group's participation in the festival, tells China Daily over e-mail.
"The audience enjoyed the music so much that the singers had to give two encores."
Mu, who is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, says the singers are more confident about their tradition after receiving positive feedback from the concerts in Leipzig.
Some scholars used to believe that polyphonic music was absent in traditional Chinese music, but with the discovery of the "grand song of the Dong people" in the 1950s, that perception changed, says Qiao Jianzhong, a professor at Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
After Germany, the band made a stop in Shanghai on its way back to Guizhou, to give a concert at Bandu Cabin, a live-house venue for music lovers in the city, and held an interactive session with students of Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
The group presented songs of love, accompanied by their traditional stringed instruments and an improvised instrument made from a single leaf.
