(TibetanReview.net, May25’23) – Terms like “ethnic unity, China’s unification, and Xizang’s economic development and social progress under the leadership of the CPC” are all euphemisms for President Xi Jinping’s renewed aggressive campaign for Sinicizing Tibet. Performing arts have been a major focus of Sinicization since the early days of Chinese occupation of Tibet. So, on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of its annexation of Tibet on May 23, China held a concert at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing to highlight the works of late Mr Luo Niany “who had made tremendous contributions to the development of Tibetan music over 50 years,” reported China’s official globaltimes.cn May 24.
Anyone who watches Tibetan theatrical performances by Chinese government-run institutions cannot fail to notice how Sinicized they have become compared to what they had been like originally. It is one area of life in Tibet in which Sinicization is most visible.
Themed “Beautiful Xizang, Lovely Hometown,” the concert, apart from honouring Luo, “a renowned composer in Xizang” who died in Jan 2023, also marked the 72nd anniversary of the “peaceful liberation of Xizang”, and the opening of the China Xizang Development Forum in 2023, the report said.
The concert will also be held during the Fifth China Tibet Tourism and Culture Expo over Jun 16-18 in Tibet’s capital Lhasa, the report said.
Born in 1932, the “renowned composer in Xizang” had joined the army in 1949 as a soldier in the 18th Army of the People’s Liberation Army that “fulfilled the mission of peaceful liberation in Xizang in 1951. After that, he had worked in Xizang for 50 years as a member and then the conductor of the Xizang Regional Military Command Song and Dance Ensemble, the honorary chairman of Xizang Musicians Association, and a council member of the China Association for the Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture,” the report said.
The report went on to say Luo made great contributions to the development of Tibetan music and culture. It cited his son Luo Xuelai as saying all the musical works his father wrote were themed on “ethnic unity, China’s unification, and Xizang’s economic development and social progress under the leadership of the CPC. In composing his songs and symphonies, he combined traditional Tibetan music, such as the tone of folk songs in the Nyingchi Autonomous Prefecture, which greatly refined Xizang folk songs.”
The younger Luo has said the Beijing concert was highlighted by a joint children’s chorus – a first time collaboration between the Xizang Qomolangma Children’s Chorus and the Sunshine Choir of Beijing Haidian District Minzu Primary School in Beijing.