The Grand Yuyuan Music and Heritage Festival, Shanghai's first large-scale event themed around intangible cultural heritage, kicked off with captivating music shows at Yuyuan Tourist Mart and the Bund Finance Center on Saturday.
Running through Nov 15, the 58-day festival features traditional Chinese opera performances at Yuyuan and music shows blending Western and Eastern elements at the center, turning the Grand Yuyuan area into a global stage where China's intangible cultural heritage meets global cultures.
At Yuyuan, traditional Chinese opera performers joined hands with pop and hip-hop artists to present a variety of refreshing performances on a special stage set up on the water, celebrating the profound history and enduring charm of traditional Chinese operas.
At the center, an immersive outdoor music show, which was set against the backdrop of the city's dazzling skyline, blew global visitors away. Delicately blending traditional Chinese instruments and operas with electronic musical notes, electronic musician Wang Lu teamed up with pioneering American multi-instrumentalist Justin Scholar, who is better known as Yukes, to add a touch of modern vibrancy to the Bund.
Dedicated to music production for 26 years, Wang has been exploring the mixture of traditional Chinese operas and modern music styles for a long time. Incorporating various opera classics into electronic music, Wang hopes to bring more young people back to the nation's traditional music and intangible cultural heritage.
