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Zhou Bichang sounds the siren on the retired \”Kiev\” aircraft carrier in Tianjin port on July 12, 2009. [sina.com.cn]

Record label Gold Typhoon is giving as much hype as the hope it places on pop singer Zhou Bichang.

\”Time\”, the singer\’s first album under the label, was released Sunday at a grand launch ceremony on the retired \”Kiev\” aircraft carrier in Tianjin port.

The ceremony opened with a gigantic poster featuring Zhou rolling down the exterior wall of the carrier. Gun salutes were fired, and the singer entered the captain\’s cabin and sounded the siren.

\”Welcome pop queen Zhou Bichang,\” read the slogan on the poster.

Talent, popularity, morality and ability are the key words for a \”pop queen\”, and Zhou is endowed with those qualities, sources with the Gold Typhoon said.

The ceremony cost about 800,000 yuan, or nearly 120,000 U.S. dollars, according to a company press release on Sina.com.

Pre-orders of the album on the Chinese mainland exceeded 80,000 within a week, the report said.

In Taiwan, where the album was released last week, \”Time\” has reached second place on the local G Music Billboard Chart.

(CRI July 14, 2009)

http://www.gtrip.net

For Filipino singer Gary Valenciano, pop superstar Michael Jackson\’s untimely death was particularly poignant.

The performer, who was in Beijing at the start of a China-wide tour, is known as the Michael Jackson of the Philippines.

\”I really feel like a part of me has also died,\” says Valenciano. \”I don\’t know how long the pain will last.\”

Valenciano was in Beijing to take part in the \”Rhythms of Love and Friendship\” concert organized by the Philippine Embassy in Beijing to celebrate the 34th anniversary of Sino-Philippines diplomatic relations.

Valenciano embarked on his singing career when Jackson\’s \”Thriller\” album was released in 1983. As a lean and lanky 18-year-old who had all of Jackson\’s moves and Al Jarreau\’s vocal pyrotechnics down pat, he was an immediate success.

Now in his 26th year in showbiz, he spends at least three months on tour, winning audiences over with his spirited singing and dancing. He says inspiring those who are in need makes him happy.

But despite having the world at his feet, he remains philosophical about his career, treating every performance as if it would be his last.

\”Life is quite short. You may die suddenly someday,\” says the 45-year-old. \”What I can do is to connect fully with my audience through powerful music every time I go on stage.\”

This current run is his second visit to Beijing, a city he finds has changed rapidly in the two years since he was last here.

\”The Chinese are making extraordinary history,\” he says. \”I am very honored to increase understanding between people in the two countries through music, the universal language.\”

He finds the history of Beijing particularly appealing, compared to the gleaming modern skylines of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. One of his ambitions is to climb the Great Wall.

\”I won\’t get tired,\” he says. \”In Taipei, I did a lot of mountain biking before my show. It helps me to understand local culture and to communicate with my audience.\”

On his show in the Star Live, a concert hall in Beijing, two weeks ago, he displayed energetic dance moves which have also earned him the nickname \”Mr Pure Energy\”. The women in the audience swooned and shrieked in pure delight and men watched enviously.

Valenciano says he cherishes his life and that of the people around him. One of the beneficiaries of his largesse are children in need. He has given money to enable rural communities to have easy access to drinking water and helped youngsters in conflict-affected communities to get a good education.

He was chosen in 1998 to be the first UNICEF National Ambassador of Goodwill for the Philippines, a position he still holds with pride. http://www.minamik.com

The president of Michael Jackson\’s record label has confirmed that new music recorded by the star before his death will be released, but insisted that the process would not be rushed.

The \’Thriller\’ singer, who passed away on June 25, was understood to have spent several years working on new material for Epic Records with artists including Ne-Yo, Akon and will.i.am.

Speaking to BBC 6 Music, Amanda Ghost said: \”I have no idea when it\’s coming out, but it will come out on Sony/Epic. We haven\’t made any decisions because we just want to be respectful for his memory and not be seen in any way as trying to cash in.

\”The appetite is definitely there (for new music)… If we do release anything of unreleased material, it has to be fantastic and it can\’t damage in any way his legacy or his legend and I won\’t let that happen at Epic.\”

It was previously suggested that Jackson had been working on an instrumental composition, while will.i.am has claimed that he will \”not leak\” his recently recorded collaboration with the star.

(CRI July 10, 2009)

http://www.nmgmzbwg.com.cn

In a life of ups and downs the popular Japanese pop singer Amuro Namie is heading for one of her happier up moments. On July 11-12, Amuro will perform on the Shanghai Grand Stage. It will be her first solo concert in Chinese mainland, granting at long last her Chinese mainland fans an opportunity to watch their idol live.

The solo concert will be one of the stops in Amuro\’s Best Fiction Tour 2008-2009. It began in October 2008, after her latest album \”Best Fiction\” passed 1.7 million in sales. It\’s the largest ever concert by a Japanese female singer – in Japan alone there are 60 concerts in total with more than 500,000 attending. So far the concerts have met with rapturous acclaim.

Each tour concert lasts for about two and half hours – without any intervals or introductions. Amuro, who is famous for her energy, just keeps singing and dancing through about 30 numbers for the entire concert.

Born in September, 1977, in Okinawa, Japan, Amuro came from a broken home – her parents divorced when she was four and she was raised by her mother, who worked in a childcare institute and a bar to make a living for them both.

When she was very young, Amuro didn\’t think about being a singer. She dreamed instead of becoming an air hostess. But when she was visiting the Okinawa Actors School with her classmates, she caught the attention of Masayuki Makino, the president of the school. She became a student there, learning singing, dancing and other performance skills. In 1992, when she was in grade two of high school, she and four classmates formed a pop band named \”Super Monkey\’s.\”

In March of 1992, \”Super Monkey\’s\” performed on television. One year later, the whole band moved to Tokyo for further development. Because Amuro\’s singing and dancing skills were very outstanding even among the other talented band members, in 1994, after they had made their fourth album, the band was renamed \”Amuro Namie with Super Monkey\’s,\” which marked the beginning of her personal performance career.

In 1995, the popular music producer Tetsuya Komuro discovered Amuro\’s talents. He signed her with his company and began writing songs for her. That October, their first song \”Body Feels Exit\” topped the Oricon Chart – the first time Amuro had been a top-listed performer. After that song, all of her albums and singles passed the million-seller mark.

1996 was one of the most important years in Amuro\’s career. In that year, her single CDs sold over 4.25 million. It seemed that she was the only person in Japanese pop music. At the beginning of 1997, her single CD \”Can You Celebrate\” created an incredible record – getting sales of over 1.5 million within three days of release. She became a trend, and the entire world fell at her feet. http://www.minamik.com

Hong Kong pop singer Eason Chan (Left) holds a hand-made doll of himself given to him by a female fan at a Beijing Concert press conference on Monday, June 22nd, 2009. [Xu Liuliu/CRI]

Hong Kong veteran singer star Eason Chan will return to Beijing in July with his world concert series \”Eason\’s Moving On\” after over one year of touring the world.

At the press release in Beijing on Monday, Chan shared the unforgettable memory of last year\’s successful Beijing concert with fans and expressed his appreciation.

Chan will lower the ticket prices to show his gratitude, so the cheapest seats will only cost 100 yuan while the most expensive will cost 1,000 yuan.

The tickets are selling very well in spite of the financial turmoil, according to organizers.

Chinese Olympic champions like Li Xiaopeng and Lin Dan attended and sent their best wishes to Chan for his effort and support with the Chinese Athletes Educational Foundation. Chan donated two best tickets to his Beijing gig for online auction and the income will be donated to the Chinese Athletes Educational Foundation.

http://www.marconimedical.com

The Xi\’an Popular Music Festival will tap the city\’s deep wells of underground talent, producing an event unlike any other seen in the city before.

Held at the Qujiang International Exhibition Center, ticket holders will get to see 40 bands spread over three days from June 26 to 28, with 15 of the bands representing universities throughout the city.

Not only will the festival host a congress of rock bands, but in true full-fledged festival style, it will also include extreme sports demonstrations, breakdancing crews, DJs, mic-battles, paintball teams, graffiti artists and other newly emerging subcultures in China.

The festival\’s mission statement is to get as many sides as possible into this snapshot of Xi\’an youth culture, \”using music as its subject, and culture as the background\”.

The festival\’s promoter, ChinaPai, has engineered the event from the standpoint of both the concertgoer and the local musician.

\”We wanted to give Xi\’an rock a stage to stand on, bring the underground above, and give them a chance that we didn\’t have in the past\” says Zhang Lei, ChinaPai promotion director and former-lead singer of now disbanded Xi\’an metal band Cankered Corpse. \”The only thing that Xi\’an musicians lack is exposure,\”

Zhang continues, \”and since 2003 we\’ve been trying to provide that.\”

In most cases, underground music scenes are slow to garner support, struggling for air in an either hostile or indifferent environment. But Xi\’an has had, in one form or another, a notable scene since the early 90s. http://www.kphy.com

From L to R, Guo Yang, Zhang Wei and Wang Wenbo pose at a press coference in Beijing on June 21, 2009. [cnsphoto]

China\’s first popular teen band, Huaer, or the Flowers, has formally split, music label Gold-Typhoon has announced.

The band\’s 26-year-old vocalist Zhang Wei will embark on a solo singing career, while drummer Wang Wenbo and bassist Guo Yang will also stay in the public eye.

Wang Wenbo revealed the reasons for their disbanding at a \”Happy Ending\” press conference on Sunday in downtown Beijing.

\”In recent years, all of us have had our own ideas for new goals,\” he said, \”I run an entertainment company and invest in films. Guo Yang is going into business, and Zhang Wei has been pursuing a change in his showbiz career.\”

\”We will still be connected in various ways in the future,\” said Zhang Wei. \”They will help produce my albums. Wang Wenbo and I will host a TV show. And all of us will embark on a ten-year anniversary concert tour.\”

The press conference was held in a shoe boutique, and Zhang Wei explained why.

\”Ten years ago, there was a bar called Busy Bee across the street. It was where we started to take the stage with this lineup and came up with the band\’s name,\” he said, \”now the bar no longer exists, and we chose this place as where we start again.\”

\”The biggest regret is that we haven\’t staged any concerts for our ten year anniversary,\” said Zhang Wei, \”so that\’s what we will do next.\”

According to the Information Times, the ten-year anniversary concert tour of Huaer will begin at the end of the year.

(CRI June 23, 2009)

http://www.tbogg.com

Beijing International Music Festival, an annual cultural event in Beijing\’s calendar, is known for its continued efforts in promoting classical music. And the preparation for its 12th event officially stepped up on Tuesday.

Opening on October 10th, the festival will run for one month with twenty-one scheduled classical performances by musicians and orchestras from the US, Finland, Germany and Australia.

This year\’s center-piece, opera \’Macbeth\’, produced by Finland\’s Savonlinna Opera Festival, will be the opening performance of the classical music events. Opera \’Macbeth\’, based on Shakespeare\’s namesake tragedy, was composed by Italian music great Verdi.

Leading the lineup are star musicians including world-renowned pianists Gary Graffman, Vladimir Ashkenazy and popular young violinist Sarah Chang. Gary Graffman is known to Chinese audiences for training Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

The headline performance for the closing ceremony will be a commemorative concert for the 30th anniversary of Oscar-winning documentary \’From Mao to Mozart\’. Filmed by biopic director Allan Miller, the documentary tracked the 1979 China tour of Isaac Stern – the first Western violin master to ever visit China.

(CRI June 18, 2009)

http://www.chinacourse.com

Mainland pop singer Zhang Liangying (Jane Zhang)?signed with world\’s leading record line Universal Records on Wednesday, her agent company comfirmed.

The deal ended the long media speculation of the singer\’s next move after she broke up with her previous label Huayi Music, a front-running record group in the mainland market.

Rumor broke out when Zhang\’s three-year record deal with Huayi Music expired in February, that she would turn to SONY/BMG for a wider overseas promotion she had long craved. But SONY/BMG didn\’t respond directly to it then.

Later in April, Wang Zhongjun, the president of Huayi, confirmed his brand would not extend the deal with Zhang Liangying who was soon to launch her own label Show City Entertainment, an affiliated company to Huayi. With part of the ownership in her hand, Zhang will be totally in charge of her music-related issues.

It is reported that Universal Records has been in touch with Zhang Liangying in person many times before reaching the final deal covering record production, publication and promotion for Zhang and other singers under her Show City label, especially offering publicity support for her music in the global market.

Zhang Liangying rose to the mainland pop scene after she finished third place on the blockbuster TV talent show \”Super Girl\” in 2005. She\’s been acclaimed for her outstanding singing talent among all \”Super Girl\” contestants, and mostly, her capability of performing Western pop classics.

The singer has till now released four full-length albums under Huayi label and had several hit singles on her merit list. She\’s seen as one of the most competitive songstresses to reign the mainland mando-pop scene.

(CRI June 19, 2009)

http://www.marconimedical.com

Art and advertising have been closely connected for sometime now. Graphic designer Seb Jarnot drew up the Nike ads; musician Jose Gonzalez sang Heartbeat for Sony Bravia TV; and Hong Kong movie director Wong Kar Wai made an ad film for Philips Aurea.

Next month in Shanghai, the China Philharmonic Orchestra and multi-media artists Bauhouse from Berlin will perform a 35-minute live commercial for carmaker Audi.

Bauhouse, that includes visual artist Fabian Grobe and sound artists Clemens Wittkowski and Arno Kraehahn, will stand on podiums and work the screens behind them from laptops while accompanied by the orchestra. The visual will comprise entirely of Audi related footage.

\”I was so excited when I got the video that I decided to change my program to conduct this one,\” says Yu Long, artistic director of China Philharmonic Orchestra who will conduct Carl Orff\’s Carmina Burana in the second half of the concert at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center on July 16 and 17. The first half will have the Audi Symphony.

\”I never imagined music, motion picture and advertising could be combined so naturally and comfortably. Yes, it is an advertising film, but the music sounds novel and inspirational and the video part is smartly shot and edited,\” says Yu.

\”It\’s interesting to create music for cars. Audi represents a certain spirit and tradition of Germany and symphonic music is also a tradition of Germany. We are combining them in a novel way that we hope people will appreciate,\” says Clemens Wittkowski.

The Audi Symphony concert in Shanghai is not only the highlight event of celebrations to mark the company\’s 100th anniversary, but is also part of the 2009 Audi Summer Music Festival. The festival includes a series of music classes held in Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Communication University of China, through June and July. http://www.znnw.com