Overview
The College of Music and Dance was founded in 2007 and it is located on the Xiamen Campus of Huaqiao University. It qualified for offering the Master’s Degree in Music (Music Education) in 2014. As the first institution featuring overseas art education inChina, the College aims to provide education for overseas Chinese and transmit Chinese culture worldwide. The College runs the “Chinese Talent (Music and Dance)Training Base” sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the “Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center of Music and Dance Art” of Fujian Province.
Programs
The College offers two four-year normal programs at the undergraduate level: Musicology (Overseas Education) and Dance (Overseas Education). The programs strive to nurture professionals with a systematic mastery of fundamental theories and skills involved in music and dance education and the ability to translate theory into practice and adapt to the education in the international context. These professionals are also expected to be open and interdisciplinary talents who can spread Chinese culture and arts all over the world. The College also provides one Master’s Degree in Music Education.
Faculty
The College has 37 full-time teachers, among which there are two professors and five associate professors. More than 40% of the faculty members have overseas experience. Our teachers come from renowned schools at home and abroad and are experienced in performance and teaching. The Honorary Presidents of the College are Mr. Yang Hongji, a famous singer in China, and Ms. Li Bicong, the Honorary President of the Hong Kong Overseas Chinese General Association. Ms. Liang Ning, the internationally renowned Chinese mezzo-soprano, is our Distinguished Professor.
Teaching Characteristics
1. Personalized Teaching
The curriculum in the College focuses on the features of the discipline. Courses are delivered in small classes to satisfy the needs of different students with different aptitudes. Courses that aim to train students’ music skills adopt one-to-one, one-to-two or one-to-four teaching modes.
2. First-class Facilities
The College boasts advanced, modern and professional teaching and experiment facilities. The Li Bicong Music and Dance Building contains 48 piano rooms for teachers, 66 piano rooms for students, six dance rehearsal rooms, chorus rehearsal rooms, ensemble rehearsal rooms, computer music classrooms and electric piano classrooms. Additionally, there are an array of professional facilities such as concert halls, studios, recording studios, audio-visual rooms and blue-box film studios.
3. Practice and Teaching Achievements
The College launches a monthly artistic performance. Students are involved in more than 30 performance activities and professional competitions of different types and levels every year. These include international, national and provincial competitions, Overseas performance tasks assigned by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and Huaqiao University and performance activities invited by departments of local governments. Students have also won national and provincial awards for chorus, dance and artistic performance. They have also participated in the celebrations and performances of major festivals of the Communist Party of China and the state.
The College owns four artistic groups: the Chorus, the Chinese Orchestra, the Dance Troupe and the Orchestra. The Chorus has won the first prize in the 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th Chinese Charming Schools Choral Festival. It has also won the first prize in the 4th, 5th and 6th College Student Artistic Festival Chorus Competition (Professional) in Fujian Province.The original classical dance of the Dance Troupe, “Nan Yin Wu Yun” which is based on Liyuan Opera and Nanyin Music, traditional arts of Fujian Province, was selected as one of the “First Collection of Excellent Chinese Dance Works”. The dance reached the final of the 11th China Dance Lotus Award for Chinese Classical Dance and won the second prize in the 4th National College Student Artistic Performance Competition. The classical dance “Sun Jiang Hu Ying”, literally “Shadows of Bamboo in Rivers and Lakes”, won the silver medal in the 5th “Lily” Dance Competition in Fujian Province. The Modern Chinese Orchestra’s work “Cai Ping”, literally “Picking up Duckweed”, won the first prize in the 5th College Student Artistic Festival in Fujian Province. “Spring” won the second prize in the 6th College Student Artistic Festival in Fujian Province. The College has been invited to represent the school in national, provincial and municipal events and to visit Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan many times. The performance of the College has been well received by the professionals and the audience.
4. Internationalized Teaching
The College attaches great importance to the international exchanges and internationalized education and has established education and internship bases with more than ten overseas Chinese schools. It is the only institute in South China to test and recruit students for such famous universities in the UK as the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. It has respectively signed the cooperation agreements with the Sangmyung University in South Korea and the National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria to carry out exchanges between teachers and students. In addition, the College invites three to four internationally recognized experts to deliver lectures and master courses to students every semester.
The College has 89 overseas undergraduates. Among them, there are 66 from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, 22 from other countries and one overseas Chinese, accounting for 16% of all undergraduates. They come from eight countries and regions, including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, North Korea, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. There are many opportunities for overseas exchanges for students. About 25% of outstanding graduates will be sent to Malaysia for a one-month internship every year. There are about 10% of our graduates who go abroad for further study each year.
We are honored to have Ms. Liang Ning, the famous mezzo-soprano, as our Distinguished Professor, SHAH JOHAN BIN SHAHRIDZUAN, the Malaysian piano master, as one of our faculty and Vavrille Annie Helene, the French singer, as our professor.
Student Training
The College constantly explores ways to cultivate students’ moral qualities, practical competence and social responsibility according to their talents and the nature of their majors. It has gradually constructed a training system that is based on moral education, professional practice, social practice and service practice. The College actively seeks to build a practice platform and a brand of practical service and volunteer service and sticks to the principle of fostering virtue through education.
The College encourages students to participate in the second classroom. Our students have made great achievements in various cultural activities, winning the first prize in the “December 9th” Freshmen’s Performance and ranking the first in the Line Dance Competition. Our students were also awarded as the Best Contributor in the sports meeting. Additionally, they won the first prize in the Psychological Sitcom Competition, reaping the Best Actor, the Best Actress and the Best Screenplay awards simultaneously.
The College attaches great importance to the employment of students. Above 90% of our graduates found jobs or went on to higher education in 2021. Among them, about 10% were enrolled as postgraduate students in domestic schools such as Capital Normal University, East China Normal University, Shandong College of Arts and Guangxi Arts University. Around 10% of our graduates were admitted to famous universities in foreign countries, including the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in the UK, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media in Germany, the Cleveland Institute of Music in the US and Sangmyung University in South Korea.
