The 10th "Love in the City - Caring for Children with Autism Charity Concert" was hosted in Beijing on April 9.

Autistic children from Angel Salon performed 13 Chinese and foreign famous musical compositions together with the Shanghai City Symphony Orchestra and the Shanghai Student Symphony Orchestra at the concert. The event was held by the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund (CCTF), Shanghai Cao Peng Music Center, and Angel Salon, with Cao Peng, one of China’s renowned conductors, 93-year-old, acting as the conductor of the concert.

The Shanghai Cao Peng Music Center launched the initiative to care for children with autism since 2007. It established the “Angel Salon” charity project with Shanghai Charity Foundation in 2018, aiming to help children with autism to build connections with the outside world through music. Keeping “respect, caring, understanding, support and love” in mind, the volunteers of Shanghai City Symphony Orchestra have been working on compulsory music training for nearly ten years, and they help autistic children to walk out of their loneliness and integrate into society.

Zhu Xisheng, secretary-general of the CCTF, gives a speech, calling for people from all walks of life to care for those children with autism and help them with love and hope.

There are over 10 million people with autism in China, including two million children. In May 2017, the CCTF set up the “China Autistic Child Care Fund” jointly with social forces to provide targeted assistance, training, scientific research and other public services to autistic children, their families and people involved in it. It aroused more understanding, care, and assistance to children with autism and their families, and has established charity platforms that bring public attention together. The Angel Salon is among the first batch of “China’s Autistic Child Care Fund Practice Bases” approved by the CCTF.