Inner Mongolia Special: Grasslands alive with 'World Music'

By Wang Kaihao (China Daily)

Updated: 2013-09-24

The grasslands of Inner Mongolia were alive with the sound of music this summer as the World Music Essence festival brought 24 outdoor concerts to Hohhot, capital of the autonomous region.

The festival's finale from Sept 20 to 22 closed out the season of folk music bands from all over the world that performed every other weekend from June to September in Shiqi Grassland Culture Park.

The concert series was co-organized by the Hohhot city government and Grassland Cultural Protection and Development Fund of Inner Mongolia, an organization founded to revive traditional Mongolian culture and enhance communication with overseas counterparts.

Unlike many other music festivals in China that focus on pop music, the event presented a relatively new form called "World Music," a mix of traditional ethnic and modern elements.

Mongolian groups are an important part of World Music, said a statement from the organizing committee, so the festival was " a great opportunity for the local music in Inner Mongolia to be better known worldwide".

The event broke the record in Hohhot for the number of participants in outdoor concerts.

The festival presented bands from the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Armenia, Russia, Cuba, Brazil and other countries plus top-tier local bands and non-Han ethnic groups in southwestern China.

Academic seminars for discussion of ideas among folk musicians from different parts of the world were also held during the festival. The country's first World Music Awards were presented at the closing ceremony this year.

Apart from concerts, audiences also had the chance to learn about exotic musical instruments from all over the world.

Arriving at Shiqi Grassland Culture Park to join the gala and experience genuine folk music presented in a fashionable way became the way for locals to spend weekends over the past summer.

People of various ages gathered in the arena to cheer for bands from far away, though most had never been to a similar event and often could not even understand the language.

Wylie & Wild West, a cowboy band from Montana, had its first trip to China. When their melodic passion for the grasslands of their home encountered the ancient Mongolian throat singing skill khoomei on the same stage, the audience went wild for the joint performance.

Such moments - when music eliminated the barriers of language and national borders - became commonplace in Hohhot.

Organizers now plan to hold the event annually and build a cultural industry in Hohhot to turn the city into an international hub for World Music and the "Capital of World Music" in China. The effort will also further boost the development of related academic studies, said the Grassland Cultural Protection and Development Fund of Inner Mongolia.

"Let the world's ethnic music approach Inner Mongolia and let the melody of Inner Mongolia approach the whole world," said the statement.

wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 09/24/2013 page5)