[Life] Beyond 'Kudiaozi'! Yang Yixiu's New Album Reimagines Taiwanese Opera

A study abroad trip to Vienna during his university years made Yang Yixiu, who was originally studying finance, realize how unfamiliar he was with traditional Taiwanese music. After returning to Taiwan, he plunged into the world of Nanguan, Beiguan, and Taiwanese opera, and after 10 years of exploration, he finally completed his new album, "Wild Stage Language." He invited six female singers to combine Taiwanese opera with popular music, hoping to use the most contemporary sound to spark more people's interest in Taiwanese opera. #Reported by CNR reporter Jiang Zhaolun# Music creator Yang Yixiu has released a new concept album, "Wild Stage Language," featuring six female singers: Yu Peizhen, Xue Yidan, Wu Jingyi, You Yiting, Zhou Yiwen, and Xu Zhaoci. The album extracts elements of Taiwanese opera and blends them with pop, jazz, and world music. All songs on the album were composed by Yang Yixiu himself, and most of the lyrics were also written by him. They tell modern life stories about friendship, love, family, and life and death, singing about the emotions and struggles of people after the age of 30. #Song Excerpts# However, this album is, in a way, Yang Yixiu's response to himself 10 years ago. Originally a finance major who studied Western classical music since childhood, he went on an exchange program to the University of Vienna before graduating. When interacting with European friends, he was surprised that they could all talk enthusiastically about their own country's folk music and historical context, while he knew very little about traditional Taiwanese music. So, after returning to Taiwan, he began learning Nanguan and Beiguan in 2016 and delved into Taiwanese opera in 2021. In an interview with CNR, Yang Yixiu said that what attracted him to Taiwanese opera was its inherent cross-border gene. He explained that Taiwanese opera has historically been able to easily absorb popular songs and folk tunes from every era, like a sponge, adapting with the times, making it easy to apply in cross-border collaborations. This inclusiveness has become the core spirit of "Wild Stage Language." The album has been in development for four years and received a subsidy of NT$700,000 from the Ministry of Culture, but the overall production cost has already exceeded one million NT dollars. Yang Yixiu not only invited Taiwanese opera musician Ke Mingfeng as a consultant but also enlisted pop musician Huang Zhongyue and jazz pianist Xu Yuying to participate in the performance. He even incorporated world instruments such as Balinese gamelan, Vietnamese dan bau, Middle Eastern oud, and Morin khuur, aiming to create a soundscape that is both familiar and unfamiliar. In his view, cross-border collaboration is about finding a way that is acceptable to both parties. Yang Yixiu: "(Original sound) For general audiences who haven't been exposed to Taiwanese opera, I hope to make them feel that opera is not something distant. This is for the pop music side; for audiences who are accustomed to watching traditional Taiwanese opera, I hope that through this method, they can see that Taiwanese opera has many possibilities at the present moment. That is, if they want to use the new melodies I've written, it's also a very convenient format. So, it's like I hope both sides can gain something." Yang Yixiu believes that many listeners may not know which elements come from Taiwanese opera at first, but as long as they find it enjoyable and are willing to explore further, that is enough. The biggest goal of "Wild Stage Language" is not to teach everyone about Taiwanese opera, but to use popular songs to reopen the door for people to approach Taiwanese opera and to arouse more interest in this traditional art form.