FOREWORD
The Beijing 13 month Culture Communication Company have curated a world-class musical label, China Music House (also known as CMH). CMH is devoted to bring together traditional Chinese folk music performers with a new generation of contemporary musicians.
In collaboration with the Beijing 13 Month Culture Communication Company, China Cultural Centre in Sydney have selected the albums; Cantonese Opera – Lost in Cantonese Opera, Pingtan – Orient Soul and Bu Bu Gao to launch on our website on the 2nd of March. These musical pieces present a contemporary fusion of singing, acting, dialogue and acrobatics of Cantonese Opera.
Pingtan; sung in the sound Wu dialect, explores the rise and fall of folk music, combined with the sounds of jazz, electronic music and a cappella. Lost in Chinese Opera captures the classical arias from the popular operas Legend of Princesses Changping and Legend of the Purple Hairpin.
Elements of electronic music are infused into the traditional sounds of the Cantonese opera. Classical Chinese instruments are blended into the bass creating a captivating auditory experience. The audience are introduced to the tragic love stories of Yi Li, Xiao Hou, Shixian Zhou and Changpin. Album CHINA MUSIC HOUSE, Pingtan – Orient Sou presents Pingtan of Jiangnan thorough a harmonic blend of compositional techniques and improvisational contemporary jazz.
Pingtan master, Bowen Gao, sings into the swinging free jazz, transforming the conventional Pingtan a musical rebirth of a simultaneous conflicting yet harmonious auditory experience.
Cuba’s most treasured musical group, Vocal Sampling, has taken classic Chinese folk musics of Lingnan, Bu Bu Gao, Rain Drops, as well as folk song of Uygur A La Mu Han, and reproduced them in the form of a cappella. When the unique charm of a cappella from Cuba meets with traditional music from China, it breathes new life into familiar classics.
There are cultural clashes as well as integration; it is classic but also modern; we can see the most traditional and the sharpest on the same stage. We hope that by cross-border music exchanges, this online compilation of CMH works will bring about new interpretations of Chinese Opera and folk musics, facilitate artistic conversations between tradition and modern, China and the world for a more internationalized dissemination.
Click the button down below for a full Youtube playlist of China Music House videos
