Under a solemn atmosphere with 1,213 candles lighting up, the symphony orchestra and chorus of Nanjing University of the Arts (NUA), totaling 300 members, staged a performance at NUA campus on the evening of Nov 21.
The year 2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. To commemorate the 300,000 victims in the Nanjing Massacre, rethink the history and better face the current situation, NUA faculty and students started an activity titled “Ode to peace - a musical, singing and poem-reading symphony concert” at the campus at 17:30.
During the activity, the original multimedia symphony chorus The Bell Tones of Peace was performed using an on-site bell to imitate the tones from the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders and Qixia Temple in Nanjing.
At 19:30, the solemn sound of bells echoed through the campus theater to mark the beginning of the original opera The Sorrow City, which tells the stories of seven Nanjing Massacre survivors still unable to recover from the sorrow of the massacre 80 years on.
"Reviewing the history allows us to rethink war and pray for peace from a human perspective,” NUA President Liu Weidong said.
