Music bridges cultures, eras in Ningbo

Music has no boundaries. That's how the Turkish businessman Erdem Ozturk felt when he listened to a remix of Yongju Opera, a traditional opera originating from Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

Ozturk participated in a cultural exchange activity in the city's Yinzhou district on Monday during which musicians from China, Spain and Ireland performed and shared their opinions about music.

Wang Leting, a Chinese remix musician, shared one of his arrangements, an adaptation of a piece of Yongju Opera.

"Wang exemplifies the idea that music has no boundary," said Ozturk, who had never listened to a remix of traditional Chinese Opera. "He has blended Chinese traditional music with electronic music. For me, he's like blending some coffee from Colombia with coffee from Arabic regions to create a new flavor."

Terence Needham, a teacher at NingboTech University and an Irish musician, also attaches great importance to renewing the music.

"I think it's very interesting to use modern music to revitalize traditional culture," Needham said. "If you don't keep renewing, it will become something for a museum. But for culture, it has to be adapted to the new generation and continue to grow."

Isidro Santos Galindo, a Spanish clarinet player, is now a music teacher at Ningbo British International School. He said traditional Chinese culture has inspired him.

He lives near Feijun Temple in Yinzhou district.

"I really like the Chinese architecture and its artistic style," Galindo said. "That's why I wrote a short piece of music for solo clarinet entitled Ningbo Fantasy. It's based on traditional Chinese music."

He Zhenbiao, a professor at NingboTech, has been taking the Chinese music to the world for years. He was a part-time DJ in a radio station in the United States in the past and shared different kinds of Chinese music with local DJs.

"I introduced Butterfly Lovers for a classical channel and also introduced Chinese rock music, such as Dream Back to the Tang Dynasty," He said. "They cannot understand Chinese very well, but they can enjoy them as we do."

The activity was held at Demohood, a creative park in Yinzhou district. The park, which was renovated from a former factory, is now home to catering, shopping and cultural and creative stores and has become popular with young residents.