with Sa Dingding

Sa Dingding knew she wanted to be a singer at the age of four, but it took her over a decade to find and perfect her unique singing voice and language.

The 26-year-old Chinese-Mongolian singer won the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for the Asia-Pacific region with her debut album "Alive" last year. Since then she has performed all over the world.

She recently opened for the 2009 Shanghai World Music Festival, winning praise from fellow musicians along the way.

"She is one of the few musicians who found a way to uniquely express her own thoughts," said He Xuntian, an acclaimed music producer in China.

Shanghai Star Weekend caught up with Sa and quizzed her on the finer points of multi-lingual crooning.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a singer?

A: Since I was four. I started to compose at the age of 10. I grew up winning people's praise for my musical talent, but at 16 I realized that all my songs were in fact ideas borrowed from other people. I was not satisfied, and I was determined to find my own voice.

Q: You put together a fine album of electronic music under the name Zhou Peng a few years back. Why did you change your name to Sa Dingding when you worked on your debut song album?

A: However good I may have been with electronic music, I was using elements of Western music. Musicians all over the world use the same materials. I wanted to steer my way on to the less-traveled road and find my own voice, and as such I took my grandma's Mongolian family name, then added my childhood name to create my new identity.

Q: In your first album "Alive" you sang in Tibetan, Sanskrit and even in a language of your own creation. Why didn't you sing in your mother tongue, Chinese?

A: Different languages have their own musical qualities. For example, in the song "Alive" I sang a paragraph of Sanskrit prayer, much in the same tune as it is said. It has its own melody and distinctive lines. That makes the process of making music much easier. I didn't find the best way to present the unique musical quality of the Chinese language. My response was to sing in a language that I made up, meaning that nobody, including myself, could actually understand it. I'll definitely sing in Chinese in the future as it is my mother tongue and I want to show this to the world.

Q: Your songs are heavily rooted in religious themes and especially Buddhism. Few Chinese of your generation can claim to have much of a religious upbringing. So what gives?

A: My grandma was Mongolian and she was a very devout person. She wouldn't even go to see the doctor when she was ill as she believed her faith would heal her. My mother is also Buddhist, and I have been learning Sanskrit prayers ever since I was a child. They were just there in my head doing nothing. Then suddenly one day I found the melody within the prayers.

Q: What do you dream of?

A: I hope to move people even when there is no instrumental accompaniment. I wish I could live on the stage. People often say your music belongs to the minority instead of the mainstream culture, but didn't all mainstream culture start from humble beginnings? Two years ago I promoted myself to Universal Music (record label) and I remember saying to them: "Don't you want to be a trend leader in addition to producing mainstream music?" For my first album, I successfully made an Oriental version of Western electronic music. For my second album, which will be launched in July, I'll try to make electronic music out of sounds from the Orient.

(China Daily 05/23/2009 page14)