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Multi-talented Liu exploits all the creative fields
By Nie Xin |
May 24, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Sola Liu (Liu Suola, pictured below), a composer, vocalist and contemporary fiction writer, is one of the most legendary artists in China, regarded as a pioneer who successfully performed folk music as rock.
In town for "World Music Shanghai" week early this month, "Sola Liu & Friends" ensemble performed their distinctive music at Shanghai Oriental Art Center. Liu also recently released her new book "Lipstick Talk."
After graduating from Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music with a degree in composition, Liu wrote music for symphony orchestras, ensembles and solo instruments as well as for film, television, theater and dance productions.
She was on the road between London and New York from 1988 to 2002, enriching her experience performing blues, jazz, rock, rap and reggae as well as classical.
She formed her international band "Sola Liu & Friends" in 1997 in New York.
Liu's first US album "Blues in the East" held one of the Top 10 positions on the New World Music Charts for weeks after release in 1994. She followed it with six other albums, including "China Collage" and "Haunts."
Liu is a successful writer, achieving critical praise as well as developing a cult following among younger readers.
Early success came with her best-selling "You Have No Choice," which won the 1988 Chinese national novella award.
Q: You have taken Chinese folk music to a wider audience in new forms, such as adapting it to rock. Do you think you have changed the original Chinese folk style?
A: Culture is changing all the time, but the old originals will be there forever.
Q: You became well-known in 1980 in China as an avant-garde writer and musician, but in London you were known for traditional Chinese folk music. How do you reconcile this change?
A: It's a misunderstanding of avant-garde. My music is always newer and newer. I am pursuing new things all the time.
Maybe there will be some things old show up in my work. It's a new pattern and my direction is forward.
Q: Why do you think that your music is not accepted by most audiences, especially in China?
A: My music is not for pleasing audiences. If you don't like it, just leave and don't listen to it. Music can be divided into three kinds - propaganda music, commercial music and art music.
I am doing art music which is not for pleasing audiences and markets, but for myself.
Q: You have claimed to struggle in being creative. Has that period passed?
A: Artists are always suffering and struggling before they find a new direction. I now have a clear aim.
That's why I suffer less than before. But I will struggle again when I start to find a new direction.
Q: What plans do you have for the future?
A: After this performance, I will go to London for my new opera "The After Life of LJT." I have composed the libretto and music for the opera and collaborated with the Theater of Voice and conductor Paul Hiller.
It is a story about some conversations between me and my dead mother's soul.
In this new opera, I will present Chinese folk music with Western classical musical instruments and will train the singers in my style.
Q: How do you define your own music?
A: My music is changing all the time. What I can only say is that I am more interested in mysticism.
Q: Some people think that the music of Sola Liu has elements of the macabre. Are you focused on pursuing this kind of mysticism in your music?
A: I am paying less and less attention to releasing emotion through my music, and now listening to the magnetic field around me. I am expressing this magnetic field through my music.
Q: Is your new book "Lipstick Talk" a feminism text?
A: I don't like my books being tagged this way.
To be honest, I wrote this book just for the sake of writing, to focus more on my language skills, like comparative and proverbial, comparing life with music.
Maybe I talk more about the lives of young women but it doesn't mean the book is feminist.
In town for "World Music Shanghai" week early this month, "Sola Liu & Friends" ensemble performed their distinctive music at Shanghai Oriental Art Center. Liu also recently released her new book "Lipstick Talk."
After graduating from Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music with a degree in composition, Liu wrote music for symphony orchestras, ensembles and solo instruments as well as for film, television, theater and dance productions.
She was on the road between London and New York from 1988 to 2002, enriching her experience performing blues, jazz, rock, rap and reggae as well as classical.
She formed her international band "Sola Liu & Friends" in 1997 in New York.
Liu's first US album "Blues in the East" held one of the Top 10 positions on the New World Music Charts for weeks after release in 1994. She followed it with six other albums, including "China Collage" and "Haunts."
Liu is a successful writer, achieving critical praise as well as developing a cult following among younger readers.
Early success came with her best-selling "You Have No Choice," which won the 1988 Chinese national novella award.
Q: You have taken Chinese folk music to a wider audience in new forms, such as adapting it to rock. Do you think you have changed the original Chinese folk style?
A: Culture is changing all the time, but the old originals will be there forever.
Q: You became well-known in 1980 in China as an avant-garde writer and musician, but in London you were known for traditional Chinese folk music. How do you reconcile this change?
A: It's a misunderstanding of avant-garde. My music is always newer and newer. I am pursuing new things all the time.
Maybe there will be some things old show up in my work. It's a new pattern and my direction is forward.
Q: Why do you think that your music is not accepted by most audiences, especially in China?
A: My music is not for pleasing audiences. If you don't like it, just leave and don't listen to it. Music can be divided into three kinds - propaganda music, commercial music and art music.
I am doing art music which is not for pleasing audiences and markets, but for myself.
Q: You have claimed to struggle in being creative. Has that period passed?
A: Artists are always suffering and struggling before they find a new direction. I now have a clear aim.
That's why I suffer less than before. But I will struggle again when I start to find a new direction.
Q: What plans do you have for the future?
A: After this performance, I will go to London for my new opera "The After Life of LJT." I have composed the libretto and music for the opera and collaborated with the Theater of Voice and conductor Paul Hiller.
It is a story about some conversations between me and my dead mother's soul.
In this new opera, I will present Chinese folk music with Western classical musical instruments and will train the singers in my style.
Q: How do you define your own music?
A: My music is changing all the time. What I can only say is that I am more interested in mysticism.
Q: Some people think that the music of Sola Liu has elements of the macabre. Are you focused on pursuing this kind of mysticism in your music?
A: I am paying less and less attention to releasing emotion through my music, and now listening to the magnetic field around me. I am expressing this magnetic field through my music.
Q: Is your new book "Lipstick Talk" a feminism text?
A: I don't like my books being tagged this way.
To be honest, I wrote this book just for the sake of writing, to focus more on my language skills, like comparative and proverbial, comparing life with music.
Maybe I talk more about the lives of young women but it doesn't mean the book is feminist.
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