Music – Universal Love

Kong Xiang-dong

China

Abstract

Kong Xiang-dong, the Chinese pianist and music educator, shared his understanding about music and how music and art can help human beings go through the coronavirus epidemic and other challenges.

Keywords: music, art, coronavirus, healing

It is a great honor to be interviewed by CAET, especially during this ongoing COVID19 epidemic worldwide. I would like to share my feelings as a musician about composition correlated with human sorrows.

Artwork comes into existence thanks to artists with the utmost sincerity and authenticity for art. Without such feelings and aspirations, they cannot truly get touched and inspired or have creative impulse. Art-making totally comes from the heart. This cosmic law identifies the function and role of art in human society. I value the exceptional position and power of art in the face of sorrows and sufferings. It can awaken our genuine insights and boost hope and longing for beauty within us. It can serve as a source of strength in our struggle against grief and pains.

Undoubtedly, I am a musician who composes music from my heart to empower and signify the sound. Music has its origin in notes, invisible and intangible, which can only be heard and felt from the heart. Considering all kinds of art, music is particularly nihilistic. Taking into account all substances of human beings, music is exceedingly shadowless, borderless, intangible, shapeless, tasteless, and colorless. However, music is eminently practical, useful, and indeed effective. It is regarded as a good medicine for the spirit or the solace of the soul; in short, music can be human redemption. Having been accompanied by music through most of my life since I started to play the piano at the age of 5, I share such feelings with my colleagues, friends, and teachers.

We have been inevitably inundated by many devastating scenes during this epidemic. Staying at home in Shanghai, without any direct personal experience in Wuhan, I feel an impulse in my heart, echoing the atmosphere through time and space, to sit in front of the piano, with my eyes closed, and let my fingers flow on the black and white keys as a sincere response to the great compassion and love of human kind.

I prefer to improvise with my composition, to be spontaneous, to follow my heart, to listen to my feelings, and thus allow my inspiration to flow freely. Online sharing has become the most effective way of communication nowadays. I just hope it can bring comfort and hope to those who are feeling frustrated, to those who are suffering, or even panicking, during the epidemic. I sincerely hope that CAET Journal can gather collective wisdom through interviews with me and friends across the fields that might lend support people widely, encourage them to have faith in life, and consolidate our experiences as strength! Such wisdom not only will help us go through this difficult time but will also illuminate, enlighten, and inspire in our struggle against sorrows in the future!

Last but not least, I would like to send my best wishes to all of you. Music is love; may everyone feel it universally.

Xiang-dong Kong
February 26, 2020
Shanghai

Listen to the stunning and touching music Kong composed during the COVID-19 epidemic to support the country and its people

• https://vimeo.com/396117784
• https://vimeo.com/396117953
• https://vimeo.com/396117961
• https://vimeo.com/396118059