A. Chinese Young Musician Delegation's Visit and Performance in the United States

During the Spring Festival of 2002 in February, the third session of Chinese Young Musician Delegation to the US organized by the United States and China Foundation went aboard the plane bound for the west coast of the US, starting another trip of performance to the US.

Chinese Young Musician Delegation to the US is one of the important parts of the USCF cultural exchange project. Between 2001 and 2002, we arranged two Chinese Young Musician Delegation to perform in the US. Both of them were great successes. And this is the third time.

The members of the third delegation are from Dalian, Shenyang and Changchun. Most of the members are the students of Prof. Gu Zhaoming, a well-known musician in Liaoning Province. Among the members of the Chinese Young Musician Delegation, the youngest is only ten years old and the oldest is no more than seventeen years old. Although they are quite young, they showed the artistic quality of real musicians, while they were performing on the stage.

The previous Chinese Young Musician Delegation performances were held on the east coast of the US. This is the first time that we held the event on the west coast of the US. The delegation is accompanied by Ms. Jiali Zhu, supervisor of Art & Cultural Exchange Department of USCF. Our Executive Director Larry L. Lee also shared some of his busy schedule with this delegation since it is a very important activity especially after last year's terrorists' attack to U.S.A. Many Chinese parents worry about their only child's safety. Totally, they made three performances, and the locations were Monterey California, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The programs they played are classical music well known to the world: "Serenade No. 13", "Suite from The Nut Cradker Valse Des Fleurs", "Can You Feel The Love Tonight (Lion King)", "Radetzky March" etc. Their wonderful performances were warmly received by the local American people. After the performance at Monterey Institute, the Principal of Monterey Institute, USCF's Senior Education Exchange Advisor-Dr. Ernest Scalberg and the staff spoke highly of the excellent performance of the Chinese Young Musician Delegation. They were amazed by the maturity of these young musicians. They hoped that these young musicians would perform at the university again next year. At the other two performances, the audience was mostly young American children with similar age. All of them liked the performances very much. The leading play-Suite from The Nut Cradker Valse Des Fleurs of the two youngest musicians won loud applause of the audience. The most exciting moment came when Prof. Gu went into the audience and played an American tune "Saxophone" which brought the whole performance to a climax. Many American students said enthusiastically that they look forward to seeing Prof. Gu again and asked him to teach them how to play saxophone next time. One hour of performance was short, but the young musicians created a warm friendship with American children through the magic power of music.

At the end of the performance, the headmaster of Acadia High School of Los Angeles presented the prize and the certificate of merit. He showed the Chinese children and their teacher over the school and introduced their educational facilities.

In addition, USCF arranged for the delegation to visit the famous Stanford University, Silicon Valley, Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, Disney, Sea World and other celebrated tourist resorts. Mr. Deng Hui, Board member of USCF's Committee, President and Founder of Arc soft, Inc. in San Jose, introduced to us the development of American high-tech industry. A series of activities increased the knowledge and broadened the vision of these children. In China, all these young musicians took English classes and recited many English words, but they didn't have the language environment to speak English. By taking this chance of visiting US, they are bold to speak English on the journey, which improve their oral English skill and add a lot of fun to the English study.

For every child， this successful activity was a meaningful and unforgettable experience. Both the children and the parents praised USCF for the tremendous work they did for this trip. And many of them expressed the desire of participating in the USCF winter/summer camp next time.

On March 10th all members of the Delegation smoothly returned to Beijing and received the warm interview of the news media.

B. Upon invitation, Mr. Jesse Watkins an executive member of the United States and China Foundation and Ms. Nancy Wang, the office director of USCF in New York attended the activity for developing Sino-US friendship held by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and China. The former President George Bush and other US social celebrities also attended this event.