On March 20, the Night of Friendship·Kong Xiangdong×NYU Shanghai 2026 Spring Sound Concert was played warmly at the Cadillac Shanghai Concert Hall. At the end of the performance, the audience ushered in the most touching moment: under the leadership of Kong Xiangdong, Chinese and foreign artists, young students on the stage and nearly a thousand audience members sang "The Same Song" in unison. The singing transcended language, regional and cultural differences and became the warmest resonance of the night, pushing the atmosphere to the climax.
As an important main performance project of the 41st Shanghai Spring International Music Festival, this concert is led by the famous pianist Kong Xiangdong and jointly performed by teachers and students of NYU Shanghai. It uses music to build a bridge for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries and highlights the diverse charm of artistic education and urban culture.
The performance coincides with the 40th anniversary of Kong Xiangdong's stage career, integrating classic melodies with humanistic sentiments. Nearly 170 Chinese and foreign teachers and students from the NYU Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Jazz Band, and Chorus presented on the same stage. The collision and blending of Eastern and Western musical elements not only demonstrated professional artistic standards, but also became a vivid practice of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, fully reflecting Shanghai's open, inclusive, and diverse international urban temperament.
The entire performance runs through the concepts of music aesthetic education and spiritual healing. Kong Xiangdong uses the sound of the piano to convey the warmth and power, integrating art appreciation, emotional expression and spiritual nourishment, bringing an immersive aesthetic education class to young students. The event continued the original intention of public welfare. 10 girls from the National Unity Demonstration Class of the No. 1 Primary School in Guangnan County, Yunnan Province, who were recipients of the AIA Friendship Charity Project, were invited by pianist Kong Xiangdong to form a choir and took to the stage to sing the Zhuang folk song "Water Hen". This song carries the Zhuang's millennium rice farming culture and entrusts their beautiful vision.
This concert uses art as a link to promote cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and foreign countries, deepens the practice of music aesthetic education, uses a warm, emotional and powerful stage to demonstrate the soft power of urban culture, and injects impetus into the cultivation of young artistic talents and the popularization of social aesthetic education.
