Recently, Poly Jimo Old Town Ballad Forum, 2017 was held in Jimo old city. Famous singers, musicians and hosting parties including Sun Hao, Li Fengyi, KeerQinfu, Qin Wanmin and so forth gathered around to jointly review the history of domestic ballade in the past two decades or so and discuss the significance of the demonstration model of ‘ballad festival in the ancient city’ at the moment with comeback of ballad.
KeerQinfu, a famous musician and music commentator, was the opening guest for the forum. He reckoned that ballad music was never short of eyeball in China that was correlated with its own nature: ‘The Chinese people pay attention to lyrics. Lyrics take an important part in creation of ballad. The first tide in China for ballad occurred with release of School Ballad 1 in 1994. It no longer gained currency after a while. But in recent years with a batch of new generation of ballad singers going popular, ballad music is having a comeback.’
Qin Wanmin, a senior music producer, ascribed popularity of ballad music to ‘reduction of production threshold and return of public aesthetic.’ ‘Holding of ballad festival in the old city caters to this trend.’ Sun Hao, a famous singer, is carrying forward ballad music and in great praise for it. More room and opportunities are opened to ballad singers.
Chen Ke, General Manager of Poly Performing Co., Ltd. started by the initial opportunity for holding ballad festival in the Forum: ‘This old city is quite tolerance. It is vibrant as well. It dovetails with the temperament of ballad music. After comprehensive consideration, we decide to hold our ballad music festival in here.’
In the two rounds of ballad festivals, Luo Dayou, Lao Lang, Shui Mu Nian Hua, Ma Di and other bigwigs in the ballad world made their presence and were soundly received. Poly Jimo Old City Ballad Festival helped draw around 400,000 travelers for the old city. It is forecasted that the number will surge. While continuing to explore the industrial model of ‘old city + performance’, Poly Jimo Old City Ballad Festival ushers in a future for cultural performance with local profound culture resulted from the form of music festival. Chen Ke said, ‘Poly Performing will hold different styles of music festivals or other types of performance in different cities. Its old city + ballad cultural tourism brand will be dedicated to Jimo. It has become a model for implementation of music industry.’