Pure as the driven snow

Children's choir with long Olympics history delivers a song of hope at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Games, Chen Nan reports.

The Summer and Winter Olympics have spawned numerous musical anthems. Back in 2008, Chinese pop star Liu Huan and British soprano Sarah Brightman performed the theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, titled You and Me, during its opening ceremony.

On the night of Feb 4, the theme song of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, titled The Snowflake, was unveiled and performed by 155 children aging from 7 to 14.

Those children were from the Beijing Philharmonic Choir, which was founded in 1983 by Chinese music educator and conductor Yang Hongnian (1934-2020).

The chorus of the song goes: "Snowflakes, snowflakes, open to the light, all around, all around, shining all the same."

Children ran across the floor of the National Stadium in Beijing-also known as the Bird's Nest-where the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was held, while holding illuminated doves. Beneath them, the LED floor lit up with snowflakes and stars, with help from motion-tracking and augmented reality technology.

According to Yang Li, the president and principal conductor of the Beijing Philharmonic Choir, son of Yang Hongnian, the choir also performed at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, singing a cappella rendition of the Olympic anthem.

"Beijing is the only city in the world to host both the Summer and Winter Games and we are honored to have performed at both of these great events," says Yang Li, adding that compared to the children who sang in 2008, those who performed at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are from a different generation.

"These children represent the modern China. They grew up, open to information from around the world, which allowed them to be much more confident, independent and knowledgeable," he says.

"What's not changed is that they are aware of the significance of the performance and trained very hard for it," Yang Li adds.

The preparations for the performance started in September. The number of choir members went through changes from around 40 children to 155. The average age of the children is about 9, most of whom are students of primary schools in Beijing.

Unlike the performance in 2008, which only involved choral singing, the performance for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics also saw the children dancing and moving.

"We let the children move freely onstage, hoping to showcase each child's uniqueness as an individual. They also achieved great harmony in their singing," says Yang Li.

"We went through lots of difficulties during the rehearsals. For example, since the rehearsals took place around the same time as the children prepared for their final exam before the winter vacation, they had very busy schedules," recalls Yang Li. "They also needed to remember the lyrics and melody of the song within a very short time, since the song was determined around one month before the opening ceremony."