Three American high school marching bands are making trans-Pacific harmony this year through a groundbreaking cultural exchange program in the Chinese mainland. A new documentary trailer titled 'When We March Together', released this week, offers a sneak peek at how music is fostering cross-cultural understanding between young people from both nations.
The film follows students from Texas, Ohio, and California as they collaborate with Chinese peer ensembles in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Through shared rehearsals of blended American and Chinese musical pieces, the participants navigate language barriers and artistic differences to create unified performances celebrating both cultures.
This initiative comes amid renewed focus on people-to-people exchanges following the 2024 San Francisco Summit between Chinese and US leaders. A Shanghai Conservatory music professor featured in the trailer notes: "When batons rise in unison, political differences fade – what remains is our shared human rhythm."
The full documentary, produced jointly by CCTV and PBS affiliates, is set to premiere during Spring Festival 2026 celebrations, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of normalized US-China educational exchanges.
