Young singers don traditional Dong garb as they prepare to give a choral performance. [Photo/dft.gog.cn]

The hills of Congjiang county in Guizhou province were alive with the sound of music on Nov 28.

The sounds were vocal performances from members of the Dong ethnic group and were part of the 13th Kam Grand Choirs Festival.

The opening ceremony of the festival began with a grandiose choral performed by approximately one thousand singers, which followed with a gun salute and dances.

Midway through the festival were the finals of a Dong song competition, which pitted more than 1,300 singers from 60 teams against each other to showcase their singing talents.

It was the culmination of a month-long competition held across 15 towns and villages in the county, where more than 5,000 hopefuls aged between four and 80 participated. The winning teams of the finals will take part in the province’s Third Kam Grand Choirs Competition. Kam Grand Choirs, or “Gal Laox” in the Dong language, is an indispensable part of Dong people’s culture. The Dong people did not have a writing system until they adopted simplified Chinese characters in the last few centuries. Instead, their songs were a way of communicating and passing down stories to generations. Dong songs can be traced back more than 2,500 years and tell stories and express emotions.