Music Crosses the Strait: Shanghai-Taiwan Autumn Concert Performs in Shanghai

On the evening of November 16th, the “One Family Across the Strait, Universal Love Unites Hearts” — Huacan · 2025 Shanghai-Taiwan Autumn Concert was held at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The concert was jointly organized by the Shanghai Sun Yat-sen Cultural Exchange Association, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, using music as a bridge to build emotional bonds between people across the strait, allowing the beauty of Chinese culture to take deep root through flowing musical notes. This event also served as the concluding piece in the series of activities celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Shanghai Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.

The concert began with the moving melody of the electronic organ duet “Festival Overture,” and was divided into two movements: “Close as Mountains and Rivers, Universal Love” and “United Hearts, China’s Prosperity.” Mainland musicians from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Theatre Academy, Central Conservatory of Music Gulangyu Piano School, and Shanghai Sun Yat-sen Cultural Exchange Association performed alongside young musicians from Taiwanese universities and music groups.

Concert scene

The performance integrated various art forms including instrumental music, vocal music, and dance, passionately performing familiar pieces such as “Ode to the Yellow River,” “The Girls of Alishan,” “Pamir, How Beautiful My Hometown Is,” and “My Chinese Heart,” expressing the resonance of cross-strait musicians with national cultural history and their attachment to blood ties. Carefully arranged world classics like the bayan duet “Volga Variations” and excerpts from the operas “Die Fledermaus” and “La Traviata” provided the audience with a high-level artistic feast.

“People on both sides of the strait are all Chinese, and shared songs can always touch the heart,” said a Taiwanese singer. “‘The Girls of Alishan’ is widely known on the mainland, and many friends can sing it. We hope to build emotional bridges through these melodies, allowing people across the strait to resonate in shared cultural memories, while also bringing unique Taiwanese culture to Shanghai, enabling cultural exchanges between the two places to spark more creativity.”

Since 2023, the Autumn Concert organized by Shanghai’s Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang in cooperation with universities in Shanghai and Taiwan has been held annually for three consecutive years.

A representative from the Shanghai Committee stated that the committee has long been committed to cross-strait exchange activities, embracing Sun Yat-sen’s spirit of “universal love” and fully building solid bridges for non-governmental interactions. They hope the concert will serve as an opportunity to further strengthen music exchange and cooperation between Shanghai and Taiwan, and look forward to young people from both sides using music as a bond to increase interactions, exchanges, and heartfelt communications, jointly promoting the integrated development of cross-strait cultures.