Choral Christmas: Week two ends in China

At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I am posting a video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.

Rodolfo Delarmente: Dum Belle, performed by Institut Teknologi Bandung Choir

I started this video series with the intention of using only performances which could be found on YouTube, so that anyone could play them anywhere – on PC, Mac, mobile device, TV. YouTube supports all those channels. Right at the beginning of the series I thought it would be nice to include a song by a Chinese choir, and I may be slow but it took me a little while to remember that YouTube is banned in China. So, sadly, there is a dearth of Chinese song on the site. A timely reminder that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and not everyone buys in to western model of sharing creativity.

So today’s choral christmas leaves YouTube, and features a performance by an Indonesian choir and their rendition of an “animated arrangement of a Philippine’s traditional rain chant.” The performance was recorded at the fourth World Choir Games, which took place at the Xiamen Convention Centre in 2006. You can find more information on the World Choir Games here.