An audiovisual symphony concert for the documentary The Yarkand River held in Shanghai on Nov 29. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

An audiovisual symphony concert for the documentary The Yarkand River was held in a theater owned by Shanghai Media Group on Nov 29.

The 70-minute concert was performed by 80 musicians from the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, presenting a total of 10 pieces alongside iconic scenes from the documentary, which were showcased on a 13-meter-tall ultra-high-definition screen.

The four-episode documentary explores the geographical characteristics and evolution of the titular river and recounts the locals' efforts in environmental conservation. Additionally, the program features archaeological sites discovered along the river and its basin and the area's economic development and international integration.

A scene from the documentary The Yarkand River. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The concert edited visual scenes from around 1,000 hours of footage shot for the documentary, selecting those representing the river's natural beauty, historical culture, modern development, and the stories of several representative individuals.

During a seminar held in Beijing last month, the documentary's director Liu Liting reminisced about how the cameramen were dispatched in over 20 batches to Kashgar and areas along the banks of the Yarkand River in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region between July 2022 and earlier this year. Their journeys spanned snowcapped mountains, plateaus, valleys, oases, and deserts covering a distance of over 150,000 kilometers, capturing the stories of more than 30 people.

Zhu Hong, deputy secretary of the Party general branch of Shanghai Media Group's documentary center, said that The Yarkand River, along with the center's previous two documentaries about Kashgar, serve as a trilogy to showcase the authentic, multidimensional and comprehensive image of Xinjiang to the world, allowing a larger audience to understand China.