If you're a musician or an aspiring one, you won't want to miss
the chance to compose an Olympic theme song.
A group of four primary school children from Tianjin,
150-kilometer southeast to Beijing, were the latest to present
their composition to the Beijing Olympic office. The students
called themselves "20088", as all four kids are going to be eight
years-old next year.
Formed a year ago, the four children were chosen by their
teacher Li Hongyu from a pool of 400 candidates from a local club
in Tianjin.
The parents of the members of the youngest electronic band in
China said the trainer assured them their children would have
enough time to study as well as work on their song. If anyone ended
up with poor marks, the students would have to withdraw from
entering.
The Organizing Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games made the
call for entries, which is ongoing until March 2008, will decide on
the themes songs for both the Beijing Games and Paralympics, a song
for the volunteers, the torch relay, and the music for awards
ceremonies.
American Giorgio Moroder, the theme song composer for the 1984,
1988 Olympic Games and the 1990 World Cup submitted his work
earlier in May after working with Chinese pianist Kong
Xiangdong.
"Our composition will make it easy for people to hum the song
after listening to it three times so that everyone can
participate," Kong said.
Former Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing also had tried his
hand after a music school teacher composed a tune for his poem on
the Beijing Olympics.
In his poem, One World One Dream, Li writes, "Let war
fires end here/ Let feud reconciled here/ Let peace and friendship
extending from here/ Let the sun shines with seven-color
light".
(China Daily June 1, 2007)
