Brits finding inspiration across China
Emma-Lee Moss, a London musician, has produced an album after discovering China as part of a program that lets British musicians explore new musical territory
There was a description of the city (online), which has a lot of musicians living there. This appealed to me because I enjoy collaborating.” Emma-Lee Moss, London-based singer-songwriter
When London-based singer-songwriter Emma-Lee Moss, artist whose stage name is Emmy the Great applied for the program, Musicians in Residence China, which lets British musicians explore new musical territory and reach new audiences, she chose Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian province.
“There was a description of the city (online), which has a lot of musicians living there. This appealed to me because I enjoy collaborating,” says Emmy the Great. She started making music after attending music festivals as a teenager, and has released three studio albums.
Her music style, which she describes as “bedroom pop” is both pop and slightly messy.
During her four weeks stay in Xiamen over April and May, Moss says she experienced “kindness, openness, made many friends, saw the sea and felt a sense of destiny”.
At her studio on Gulangyu, an island adjacent to Xiamen, she met young Chinese musicians playing Nan Yin, the traditional melodies of Fujian which originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). She also explored Gulangyu, once a haunt for foreign merchants and missionaries after the First Opium War and now a place for tourists.
She was also invited to be one of the judges at a university singing competition.
The Hong Kong-born singersongwriter, whose mother is Chinese and father English, calls the trip “a special introduction to China and the start of a long relationship”.
The trip inspired her to produce an album with yuanfen, or destiny, as its central theme. One of the songs in the album is about abandoned buildings on Gulangyu.
On the day she went to meet the local buildings committee, three women came to her studio. They were sisters who had been born in the house, which was her studio.
Another song is about the singersongwriter’s experience at the Guanyin Temple, a Buddhist temple.
By the time she left Xiamen, Emmy the Great was able to get around on her own, despite difficulties with language.
“On my last day, I even figured out my coffee order,” she says.
“I miss Xiamen and my time there. My mum and I have agreed to take a trip to a new place in China every time I return to Asia.”
Emmy the Great is one among the three musicians who are to create new work in three Chinese cities under the program.
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Quinta is currently in Guiyang, Guizhou province (April 28 to June 13), while Irish musician David Lyttle, will be in Suzhou, Jiangsu TheImmortalBard
province, over September-October.
The program, initiated by the British Council, the United Kingdom’s international organization for educational opportunities and cultural relations, and PRS For Music Foundation, the UK’s leading funder of new music across all genres in 2011. It has so far brought 12 musicians to 11 Chinese cities, including Hangzhou, Chengdu and Xi’an.
According to Nick Marchand, the director of arts and creative industries for British Council China, the residencies have resulted in a diverse range of collaborations and output.
“This program supports UK-based musicians to benefit from a rare opportunity to immerse themselves in a different culture,” says Marchand.
“We choose these Chinese cities, mainly second- and third-tier ones, which offer these musicians exposure and connection.” The benefits last, says Marchand. For instance, in 2013, Welsh singersongwriter Gareth Bonello released an album, titled The Immortal Bard, combining Welsh and Chinese folk music to tell the life story of Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai.
It was named Welsh Album of the Year at the 2014 National Eisteddfod, and was nominated for the 2014 Welsh Music Prize.
In 2011, Bonello was one of the four UK musicians chosen to take part in the first round of the Musician in Residence China program.
It was his first time in China and he was very excited to see a country that he had always hoped to travel to.
During his six weeks in Chengdu, Sichuan province, he met musicians, who taught him about traditional Chinese music.
“The most inspiring experience for me was listening to the musicians performing. They were all extremely skilled and had a very deep understanding of their instruments and the music. It had a profound effect on me and inspired me to write music that would do their talent justice,” he says. “Chengdu is a very different place from my home city of Cardiff, which is the capital of Wales. Cardiff has a population of just 340,000 so it took quite a while for me to adapt to living in a big city like Chengdu.
“Although on the surface there may not seem to be a lot of similarities between Cardiff and Chengdu, when I scratched the surface I did find that they had plenty in common.
“The people of both cities have a friendly, laid-back quality that helps life to move along at a comfortable pace. There is also a shared love of open spaces, as can be seen by the large number of parks and gardens right in the center of town. Both Cardiff and Chengdu place a high value on culture and history, which really helped me to feel at home in Chengdu.”
He then decided to research Chinese poetry as a way of getting an insight into Chinese culture. He read not only Li Bai but other Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty such as Du Fu and Wang Wei.
The album was recorded both in China and the UK and involved musicians from both countries.
In 2015, he visited China again, and performed in Chongqing, Kunming and Chengdu with an ensemble comprising traditional Chinese instruments — the erhu, the guzheng, the pipa and the xiao.
“It was a real thrill to perform the songs with a Chinese ensemble before an audience for the first time. I had written and recorded an album that was inspired by Chinese culture, so of course I wanted to share it with Chinese audiences. It was really fascinating to hear what people had to say, and it’s something I hope to do again in the future,” he says.