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August 8, 2020

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More poet in the temple of art than pop star

“Life is hard to guess; luck doesn’t accompany you most of the time. I finally realize I’m not a genius or the dust,” Li Quan laments in “The Genius and The Dust (2012).”

The 51-year-old singer-songwriter, also known as James Li, is a rare case in Chinese pop music compared to his contemporaries. Whereas most Chinese singers remain pure to the pop music genre, Li draws from an eclectic background of classical, jazz and rock and pop music.

“I wrote this song (“The Genius and The Dust”) to myself years ago, to remind me of a more attractive future, rather than being stuck in the past,” said Li, sitting by an electronic piano, his band and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra’s string ensemble at the 11th Music in the Summer Air Festival (MISA) in Shanghai.

Li recently returned to the music scene, after a temporary absence following knee surgery, with five new songs for his new album “Decameron” and three representative pieces especially composed for the MISA show.

The musician’s nimble fingers caressed the keys and lingered while a flowing melody tickled gently like the feather. He raised and waved his arms in the air and closed his eyes as the emotion of the song overwhelmed him at the live performance.

“Symphony orchestra is a very luxurious configuration for singers. Cooperating with a symphony orchestra is such an honor that all singers dream about,” Li told the audience during another song break.

It was the Shanghai musician’s first concert since the epidemic and his first professional performance on a stage designed for a symphony orchestra.

Acclaimed

The enthusiastic audience burst into rapturous applause at the end of every song, new or old.

“From your enthusiastic reaction, I’m glad that my new songs were preferred and our cooperation was acclaimed,” said Li, who added he felt lost after his long lay-off from a knee injury. “I felt as if I was drowning. I was desperate to stand up and sing on the stage again.

“I held some concerts in my wheelchair but it was not the same on stage. I could not ignore the sympathy from my audiences so I told myself, if I could not stand by myself, then I wouldn’t perform.”

Li’s injury was a low point in his life so he decided to find himself again and went to live in Zhujiajiao, a watertown on the outskirts of Shanghai, where he rented a house with friends. He would wake up at 6am most days, take a walk along the lake, buy fresh produce at the market, cook lunch and supper, play piano until midnight and spend some time mediating.

“I let myself reach a flow state — an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. I learned patience and the importance of being calm and centered. And I felt free.”

Six songs, including five he sang at the concert, and another called “Zhong Nian” or “Middle-Age,” were composed during the stay at Zhujiajiao.

“Fast Radio Burst” is an ambient styled psychedelic electronic piece and is very existential.

The cover of the “Decameron” album features an astronaut traversing the universe, made up of several circles of radio waves. And Li is seen as the astronaut and the universe is the ever-changing trends of pop music.

Li has never been fully accepted by the public and his comments are often polarized because of his unconventional taste in music and life.

“I can’t accept a rut,” the singer said. “Every year, I sing my songs with new ideas while recording my life and state of mind.”

In “Singer 2018,” a prime-time TV competitive music show, Li sang his best-known song “We Belong with Each Other.” Unexpectedly, he improvised his original song in a jazz style and charmed the audience with his magnetic rising and falling voice.

In the final competition, popular Taiwanese singer Angela Chang, who also participated in the show, said, “We have fallen in love with him seven times, after each of his seven songs.”

Li started playing classical piano when he was 4 years old. This experience has allowed him to show his versatility in any composition and adapt any style of music into his canon of work whether it is classical music, pop, rock or jazz.

Music producer Zhong Xingmin paid tribute to the talented singer-songwriter after watching his show on Singer 2018. He said, “I prefer to watch you from afar in the arena and listen to you sing. That’s the best way for me to enjoy the performance.”

Li is an unlikely star in the phenomenal world of music. He is more like a poet in the temple of art and a classical musician than a run of the mill pop star from a production line.




 

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