NYU Shanghai's 2021 Spring Concert!

NYU Shanghai’s halls have been filled with music this month as campus music groups shared with enthusiastic audiences the music they’ve been working on this Spring. The month of performances culminated with the traditional end of semester concert, with selections from the Chamber Orchestra, two a cappella choirs, the Chorale, and the NYU Shanghai Jazz Ensemble. View full video of the entire concert at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKEZhugbO-Q

On May 7th, NYU Shanghai professor Chen Meiling’s piano students played in pairs in a concert named “Symphonic Dances.” Each piece was played by two or more students. The final piece on the program featured eight students from the advanced piano group class, with sixteen hands on two pianos playing Galop-Marche, by A. Lavignac.

The NYU Shanghai Chamber Orchestra played a variety of pieces, ranging from selections from E. Greig’s opera “Peer Gynt,” to a mashup from the score of the film, Lala Land. The orchestra launched their performance with a traditional Chinese folk song, 紫竹调 (Violet Bamboo Flute Tune), featuring several guest bamboo flute soloists, members of a new Chinese instrumental group coached by orchestra conductor and professor Cheng Yue..

Cellist Phoebe Lemon ‘24 joined the orchestra as soon as she got out of quarantine in January. “This was my first concert since March of 2020! I missed my instrument so much during quarantine in the States when I couldn’t go to any rehearsals or lessons,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much doing things we love improves our overall happiness and mental health, but we shouldn’t take them for granted.”

Under the guidance of music professor Katherine Girvin, the campus’ two new a cappella groups sang a mix of pop and showtunes, featuring beatboxing by Jia Ningyuan NYU '24 and Steve Sun Dehong '22.

Zhuo Wang NYU '24 was a featured soloist in the a cappella version of Mandopop star Jay Chou’s “Mojito.” “The students asked to sing this song, so we hired an arranger to write one of the first ever a capella arrangements,'' said chorale director Girvin. “No other group in the world is performing this arrangement. It was written just for them.”

The NYU Shanghai Chorale, featuring over 70 singers from all class years, sang three crowd pleasing show-tunes: “The Greatest Show” from the musical The Greatest Showman, “Show Yourself” from the movie Frozen 2, and a mashup from the musical Hamilton.

The university Jazz Ensemble had audience members tapping their feet and dancing in their seats. Led by professor Murray James Morrison, the group played two pieces, “Tea for Two” by Vincent Youmans (arr Morrison) and “Tongues,” a piece composed by Morrison, that is designed to symbolize language and culture.

The spring concert was a chance for some students to try their hand at arranging music. Vera Chong ‘21, a member of both the jazz ensemble and orchestra, arranged the orchestra’s “Promise of the World” by Joe Hisaishi. “It’s really cool to hear something you wrote materialize into something real!” she said. "I have really fond memories playing this piece my freshman year in a quartet and thought that it would be a great way to finish my time here in the NYU Shanghai music department.”