International Federation for Choral Music

With many fond memories of their time together in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and Beijing, China, singers, instrumentalists, and conductors of the 2019 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Countries Youth Choir (SCOCYC) gathered online on 18 May 2021 to reminisce and reflect on this historic moment in the international choral world. Meeting across 16 time zones, they were joined by Emily Kuo (IFCM President), Gábor Móczár (SCOCYC committee chair), Ki Adams (SCOCYC artistic chair), and Yu Hang Tan (session manager). Special invited guest Ambassador Wang Kaiwen (recently SCO Deputy Secretary-General and now Deputy Secretary-General of Xi’an Eurasian Economic Forum) spoke about the significance of this project in bringing together singers from 16 of the 18 countries in the SCO for a cultural dialogue, i.e., rehearsing and performing together as a choir. The SCO countries represented in 2019 were Afghanistan, Armenia, Belarus, Cambodia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan. 

Conductors André de Quadros (India-USA) and Maria Goundorina (Russia-Sweden) led the reflection with two questions: 

• In what ways has the SCOCYC made a profound change in the way you view music and the world?
• Discuss the most memorable musical moment you had at the SCOCYC.

Reflections from the participants will be included in the SCOCYC promotional video being prepared to promote future sessions. 

The gathering ended with a video, A Time to Remember, a photo video collage of images from 2019 with a sound track by Inner Mongolia morin khuur player, Han Mu Ren. Everyone left inspired and encouraged that ‘we will meet again’ to sing together as an 'instrument' for developing mutual trust, friendship, and respect.