Songs of place

Wild Fire Music, Taiwan's aboriginal record company, will stage a tour of the Chinese mainland this month.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Wild Fire Music's tour showcases singer-songwriters inspired by the indigenous folk music of Taiwan, Chen Nan reports.

In 1996, music industry veteran Hsiung Ju-hsien, who at the time worked for the Taiwan record company Magic Stone, listened to Elders' Drinking Song, a traditional ethnic Amis Palang song performed by Difang Duana (1921-2002). She was overwhelmed by the beautiful melody and the singer's haunting voice.

For Hsiung, who had worked in mainstream record companies and managed many pop icons for more than 20 years, the traditional Amis song was much livelier and realer than pop music.

In 2002, the second day after she resigned from Magic Stone, Hsiung started her own record company, Wild Fire Music, which brought together a group of like-minded aboriginal Taiwan musicians.

Now, 13 years later, the label has become a famed music brand in Taiwan, introducing new Taiwan folk music, especially by talented indigenous musicians.

This summer, Hsiung will lead some of the singer-songwriters on the label, such as Chen Yung-long, Sun Lin-feng and Tseng Jen-yi, on a tour of the Chinese mainland.

Starting in Beijing on July 17, the tour will head to other cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan throughout July. Beijing-based singer-songwriters Xiao Juan and Zhou Yunpeng will be guests.

It's not the first time that Hsiung and singer-songwriters of Wild Fire Music have toured the Chinese mainland. In 2006, Hsiung toured with ethnic Puyuma singer Hu De-fu, better known as Ara Kimbo, to promote his album, In a Flash.

"I was impressed by the size of the audience when we held a concert at Peking University. Our guest, Taiwan singer-songwriter Jonathan Lee, couldn't get into the venue because of the crowds. At the end of the concert, all the audience stomped on the floor and cheered Kimbo," recalls Hsiung, 52. "Since then I realized that, when you listen to songs that are really beautiful, you share the same emotion with the singer-songwriters, despite the differences in educational backgrounds and living environments."

In 2007 and 2012, Hsiung again staged tours of Wild Fire Music acts on the mainland, which were also warmly received.

Hsiung says that this year also marks the 40-year anniversary of "Taiwan's modern folk music movement" when a group of singer-songwriters led by Ara Kimbo performed in a concert on June 6, 1975, in Taipei, calling for original songwriting in Taiwan rather than copying Western and Japanese music.