Yang Hongnian (杨鸿年) won more awards in international choral competitions than any other Chinese conductor, leading the Beijing Philharmonic Choir ensemble around the world for more than 30 years.
Born in Nanjing in 1934, Yang first worked as conductor for the Nanjing People’s Radio Station’s Chorus in 1951. He was to go on to be vividly remembered.
In 1983, the leaders of the Beijing Guanyuan Art Training Centre wanted to organise a children’s chorus of the highest level in China. They were recommended Yang, who readily agreed, famously promising, “Let the choir become the best in Beijing within 1 year, the best in the country in 2 years, enter the international ranks in 3 years and reach a truly international level in 4 years”.
Those 4 years later, the Children and Young Women’s Chorus of China National Symphony Orchestra (now the Beijing Philharmonic Choir) performed in the Third International Children’s Choir Festival in Washington D.C., USA, in 1987. There they received a Highest Appreciation Certificate, signed by then-US president, Ronald Reagan.
On the other side of the pond, the Austrian capital of Vienna is famed for its New Year’s Concert (Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker), making the city’s citizens hard to impress. When Yang and his choir performed there in 1990, then-Austrian president, Rudolf Kirchschläger, heaped on the praise, saying, “A concert of such brilliance should be heard by everyone in Vienna”.
By now, the awards were mounting up. In May, 1997, the ensemble won the only special prize at the International Art Festival in Moscow commemorating the 200th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth.
Taking the choir on frequent tours abroad, Yang’s efforts helped over 5,000 Chinese children and young women experience the cultures and welcomes of many other countries and regions, including Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Macao, Singapore, Sweden and Taiwan. Under Yang, they sung over 1,000 performances worldwide, releasing no less than 32 CD and DVD albums and seven collections of children’s choral music.
Yang became famous worldwide not only for being prolific in his field, but also for a musical prowess that saw him conduct with zeal and precision.
In recognition of his outstanding artistic achievements, conductors from various countries elected Yang Vice Chairman of the International Society of Children’s Choral and Performing Arts on three consecutive occasions.
Yet, Yang’s zenith, as well as that of his choir, arguably came about as part of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The choir had been selected to be a key ingredient in the bidding process for both the 2000 and 2008 Games, by an organising committee keen to impress the IOC with a potential cultural contribution to the Games.
With the latter bid a success, on 8 August, 2008, 66 lucky choir members were among the Chinese and foreign children who sang The Olympic Anthem at the opening ceremony of the 29th Games of the Olympiad. It was a fitting climax for the ensemble whose motto is “Love and Devotion”.
In January 2014, Yang was awarded the honorary title of “2013 Chinese Cultural Figure”.
He once sighed that the timbre in children’s voices is the clearest and most ethereal in all of the human lifespan; its moment in the sun snuffed out all too quickly.
Yang passed away of illness, aged 86, on 26 July, 2020.
