Shanghai Daily news

In a tune up for World Expo, its organizers are promoting world music, that increasingly trendy genre of indigenous ethnic music of voice and unusual instruments. This authentic, non-pop voice of people around the world has a beguiling beauty.

From April 30 to May 5, 10 noted performers and groups of world musicians from China and abroad will perform in the Shanghai Concert Hall for the Week of World Music.

The Expo theme is "Better City, Better Life," and part of that better life is putting urban dwellers in touch with musical roots, whether from their own country or others.

The concert will feature several minority performers: a Dong chorus from Hunan Province, the Mugan of Dolan in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, singer Long Xian'e of the Miaos in Yunnan Province, the Lao Qiang from Shaanxi Province and the Pumi, also called Primi, from southwestern China (Sichuan and Yunnan provinces).

Each Chinese performance will be paired with an overseas sound: Drums from the Central African nation of Burundi, Indonesian gamelan, Central Asian khoomei or "throat singing" from Tuva, a republic in south central Russia bordering the Mongolia People's Republic, Iranian folk music and Spanish flamenco.

"This is just a start. We want Shanghai Expo in 2010 to be an unprecedented grand stage for all kinds of music, making the Expo also a music festival," said Hu Jingjun, deputy director of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination. He is in charge of organizing cultural events.

World music made its debut on the world stage long ago at the 1889 Paris Expo when the Eiffel Tower astonished the world.

At that Expo, gamelan music from Indonesia and raga music from India captivated the audience. French composer Claude Debussy, then only 26 years old, was enraptured by the combination of exotic Javanese sounds, cymbals and woodwinds.

"The music that Westerners are searching for has been existing for thousands years," said Debussy.

Both gamelan and ragas enlightened the art world at the end of 19th century, said Hu.

"A hundred years later, the task of World Expo now has turned into showcasing civilization and concepts of people instead of only trading new technologies," Hu said.

"Cultural events are very important in World Expo Shanghai 2010, and world music is definitely a part of them."

Take the Dong minority chorus. The Dongs, population about 2.6 million, live in Southeast China and their history goes back more than 2,500 years. Family singing is a tradition and hundreds of villagers sing together in choruses.

Chinese musicologist Zheng Lucheng discovered the Dong chorus when he traveled to Guizhou Province in 1950s - they live throughout southeastern China. Before that, polyphonic music (with two independent melodic parts sung together) had never been identified in original music in China and was considered more akin to Western church choirs.

Zheng took the Dong Choir to Festival of Autumn in Paris in 1986. Listeners were amazed that the music remained so pristine and beautiful.

"If possible, we want to save this native music," said Hu.

Noting the "Better City, Better Life" Expo theme, Hu said people used to think that the modern world destroyed primitive cultures.

Today, however, the goal is a harmonious, multi-cultural urban setting. Shanghai's cultural welcome and generosity is well known, he said.

This year's Expo organizing task is to introduce the concept of world music. Next year, organizers plan to stage world music plus modern jazz, rock and roll, and electronic music.