Celine Dion performs at Lunar New Year gala in Beijing
Posted February 10, 2013 11:02 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Canadian singer Celine Dion made a guest appearance at the Chinese New Year gala on Saturday.
Dion’s performance was one of the many spectacles that made up the five-hour extravaganza, filled with comedy skits and armies of dancers.
Broadcast to a wide audience on Chinese state television CCTV, Dion’s first performance at the concert was a rendition of the Chinese folk song Jasmine Flower, which she sang with Chinese soprano Song Zuying in Mandarin.
Dion told CCTV it was an honour to have been invited to perform at the concert.
“First of all, it was a wonderful, big honour when I was asked to come here to China and to perform for the New Year’s Eve. I know it’s a very, very important celebration,” Dion said.
Commenting on her performance of the song Jasmine Flower, Dion did not cite language, but channeling “passion” as her biggest singing challenge.
“I had wonderful people in the studio helping me understand the meaning of the song,” Dion said. “But even in between the lines, between what you’re singing, you have to feel the music. You have to feel the passion. It’s very difficult to pinpoint passion. It’s very difficult to pinpoint emotion. This is something that is around us. And I think it lives through music.”
Dion’s final performance of the evening was My Heart Will Go On, the song that made her a household name in China.
The start of the Lunar New Year’s holiday on Saturday was marked by firecrackers in the streets and fireworks in the sky to bring good fortune.
