Sixteen-year musical dream
- Source: Global Times
- [19:58 March 07 2011]
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Chinese soprano Hu Yan.
By Jiang Wanjuan
Although long active on the international stage, Chinese soprano Hu Yan only just held her first very own concert in Beijing's Century Theater last week, completing a 16-year musical journey.
Born to a music-loving family in East China's Zhejiang Province, Hu started to learn singing at the age of five, made early TV appearances singing "Beautiful Spanish Woman".
She was later regarded as one of China's top three sopranos after shooting a winning MTV Believe Oriental video in Europe with Yao Hong and Ma Mei.
"I've always wanted to have a concert of my own, so I have been practicing my skills and making more songs of my own," Hu told the Global Times.
Hu started collaborating with songwriters to produce her own songs in 2002, and "Ping'an Zhongguo" ("Peaceful China") made its debut in the Spring Festival Gala in 2005.
As a soprano, Hu believes in following the rules of bel canto, or beautiful singing, for which skill is the core. As a young, open-minded musician greatly inspired by English classical crossover soprano Sarah Brightman, Hu believes that the combination of bel canto and pop may extend her voice to a larger audience.
Her iconic songs "Peaceful China" and "Beautiful Oriental Girl" have reached beyond traditional listeners to the ordinary young and old, and she is often described in the media as "the Sarah Brightman of the East" for her perfection in combining bel canto and pop music.
"Good pop singers are worth learning [about] for us sopranos, because they pay a lot of attention to emotion in their singing," she said. "Bel canto usually focuses on skills, which is good but better if it has emotion."
