March of Sportsmen

In 1978, The Military Band of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army [中国人民解放军军乐团] recorded a vinyl album titled *运动员进行曲* (March Of Sportsmen) produced by China Record Company. The format was Vinyl, 7″, 33 ⅓ RPM, EP. It consists of 4 tracks – 运动员进行曲 (March of Sportsmen), 团结友谊进行曲 (March of Unity and Friendship), 欢迎进行曲 (Welcome March) and 欢送进行曲 (Farewell March). The conductors were Cheng Yi-Ming and Liu Yu-Pao. Since then, various other formats like cassettes and CDs were recorded from the master tape.

The four marches’ printed musics scores for wind ensembles were published in 1978. It’s not easy to find these original printed scores but currently, I have all 4 of them in my collection. Any band directors who are interested in these band scores and would like to introduce these Chinese marches to their bands, please contact me. These marches are classics and have been played for many years in numerous occasions. Compared to American marches, these Chinese marches are played in a much faster tempo. You can listen to these marches easily as quite a number were posted online. For clear original sound, you may have to source for the vinyl album.