"Story Island" is nominated for the 53rd Grammy Awards in the "Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package" category.
Taiwan is an island of stories. Many stories have happened here, giving color to both day and night. Two artists tell their stories of travel in Taiwan through music and art design.
CinCin Lee, winner of multiple Golden Melody Awards and Golden Horse Awards, is a well-known composer of soundtrack music. She has blended the power of film music, the passion of Latin American music, the romantic feel of jazz and the gentle spirit of New Age music with the original sounds and deep feelings of Taiwan to create music that evokes the scenery one sees when travelling in Taiwan.
The Story Island tells us of the unspoiled beauty of the happy land of Taidong and of the human culture and spiritual nature of Sun Moon Lake. It tells us of the passion of Kending, and of the cosmopolitan, bustling nature of Taipei.
Disc 1:
Taipei changes on a daily basis. If you walk down Zhong Shan North Road, amidst the jumble of flagship stores for brand-name products and fancy wedding photo studios, you can also see old buildings like the Spot Taipei Film House and the Cai Ruiyue Dance Studio. Not far away you will find the historic Taipei Guest House, the past glories of century-old Dadaocheng and the 24-hour Eslite bookstore. If you travel a bit further, you will discover the hidden corners of Danshui’s Old Street, the endless nights of the mountain town of Jiufen, and the secret loves of the Beitou hot springs. All kinds of yesterdays, today and tomorrows intertwine in the flourishing metropolis of Taipei.
Disc 2:
Sun Moon Lake, whether at morning or twilight, in the sun or in the rain, its appearance is always changing. In its transformations, it conveys a sense of delicacy. Especially the clear waves in the moonlight, the ripples burst forth in the light of the evening. And when you gaze at its calm face, the fantastic radiance shines out in the twinkling of an eye.
According to legend, ages ago, the ancestors of the Thao people were pursuing a rare white deer when they came upon Sun Moon Lake, where they then settled. I found this story deeply captivating. The miraculous legend of the pursuit of the white deer, the old wise woman who prophesied about the tribes people’s future, the endlessly echoing sound of the pounding pestles, those blurred breaths in the moonlight, and all those things that have become memories…you have heard and seen them all. So I imagined the lake as the protagonist in a film, and wrote the “Sun Moon Lake” soundtrack for it.
Disc 3:
With the popular craze over the film Cape No. 7, Kending is hotter than the south Taiwan sun. In order to compose this music, beginning in 2007, I made three trips between Taipei and Kending, experiencing the free sun of south Taiwan, sunset at Guanshan and the lighthouse at Eluanbi. You know when you go to Longpan Park you should lie on the grass and look at the stars, every October you should go to Sheding Park and watch the gray-faced buzzard hawks, and when you hear the sound of a yueqin (Chinese moon guitar), you should start singing “I Remember….”
Disc 4:
The black forest in the rain, the serene Pipa Lake. The bridge in Taiyuan, the quiet dialogue between the waves and sand on the east coast. After returning to Taipei, I wrote a song for the tribal villages, for the east coast, and for my fortunate travels and yours as well.
This is a wonderful island full of stories. I have spent three years listening to it, and written music for its north, center, south and east. I like to travel, and I like music and photography, so I have created my music for travel in Taiwan in my own style.
Please accept my invitation, and let’s listen to Taiwan together.
Artist: CinCin Lee
CinCin Lee, whose Fantasia of Tuscany won Best Instrumental Album at the 19th Golden Melody Awards in 2008 over competitors such as Jay Chou, is a multitalented composer whose music encompasses classical, jazz, rock, pop and film soundtracks.
Since she first entered the music field in 1990’s, CinCin Lee has been in involved in many well-known music projects, such as Ming-chang Chen’s classic album An Afternoon Opera and the soundtrack for Hsiao-hsien Hou’s film Dust of Angels, thereby winning high praise from music critics and experts. In 1992 she and well-known producer Wei-zhe Lin formed the legendary band Baboo and released the album New Taiwan Dollars, now considered a must-have album among collectors.
From 1995 to 1998, CinCin Lee studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, deepening her professional music skills and expanding her sense of musical aesthetics. After completing her studies, she devoted herself full time to the music industry, producing and arranging for a wide variety of artists, including Xinsui (Ciacia) He, Sheng Chen (Bobby Chen), Qi-zhen Chen (Cheer Chen), Yong-qi Liang (Gigi Leong), Xin-jie Lee (Angelica Lee), Hui-lun Su (Tarcy Su), Shao-han Zhang (Angela Zhang), Jing-ying Tao, Tolaku, and Walkie Talkie.
Since 1998, Lee has also composed many soundtracks for movies and advertisements, including music for HBO, Double Vision, 20 30 40, The Peony Pavilion, The Matrimony, Blue Cha Cha, Island Etude, and Miao Miao, and ad music for Dove Chocolate, Taiwan Semiconductor, and the Taiwan Foundation for Children and Families.
In 2004, Lee started composing instrumental music, and together with Wind Music has produced a series of albums, including Moonlight Lavender, Bossa Sweet Orange, and the travel-themed Fantasia of Tuscany, which was nominated for two Golden Melody Awards, winning the award for Best Instrumental Album.
Cover Design Artist: Xiao Qing-yang
Xiao Qing-yang Cuts Out the Island of Stories in Paper
As told to Su-ying Yu by Xiao Qing-yang
Lace cloth in a hundred year old house
In early 2009, I traveled to Los Angeles to attend the Grammy award ceremonies for the third time. On this trip we stayed in a hundred-plus year old wood house. This house belonged to an old British couple. Staying in this house for two weeks was a moving experience for me. Everywhere around the house, whether it was the table cloths, toilet seat covers, the sink or the dressing table, everything was covered embroidered white lace. All of it had either been made or collected by the lady of the house, so this house was a collection of a hundred years of art, an artistic achievement as well as a part of daily life.
I began to consider whether it would be possible to use the same concept in my own creations. I thought about which countries had this type of art work, and when I traveled to places like Beijing and Hong Kong, I started collecting this kind of artwork. This idea had been brewing in my head for a long time, when CinCin Lee and Wind Music showed up, allowing this plan to finally take shape.
Creating a kind of pattern
From the beginning of 2009 to the August 8 floods, many unsettling things took place in our society. Amidst these events, I felt that the “island of stories” concept was a good one, as this concept could go beyond the music itself. The music might evoke a certain atmosphere, but my pictures would encompass the events that took place only yesterday. I believe that once they become pieces of art, after some time has passed, there will be others who will follow this idea. A lot of history and news stories disappear, but art remains.
I am very happy to have participated in this project. Given an idea or a story, I could cut out something with meaning in attractive paper, which I found very exciting. I think that beyond the art itself, it is an album that can evoke many impressions in people.
Using paper cutting to tell Taiwan’s stories, every picture is like a piece of music, powerful enough to tell a great deal.
I want to create a kind of art that no one in the worked has ever done before. If we just did paper cut outs of Taiwan’s scenery, this concept would be too narrow. We should start from a concern for our own land and the place where we grew up and broaden our scope to a concern for the beauty and the tragedies of the world.
The picture concerning the August 8 flooding is based on a photo that appeared on CNN and other international media in which a soldier was carrying an elderly nun [monk?] and a woman was leading a small child. Both children and the elderly are age groups that society needs to be particularly solicitous towards. All these things are part of the concept; they are all things that happened on this island of stories. The picture of the Presidential Office is about architectural aesthetics; it incorporates images from all Taiwan’s ethnic groups. There are two pieces concerning the ecology; the topics they cover are betel nut culture and the Formosan Black Bear. On the former I used an image of the hand of late Amis singer Difang [whose vocals were used on the Enigma hit “Return to Innocence”] wrapping a betel nut. More directly related to the music are the pictures of the Sun Moon Lake story and of the monkeys of Taiyuan valley. Then there are the pictures of the pavilion and the native children on Orchid Island…. Taiwan is so full of stories that every small town and every outlying island has its own powerful human culture and meaning, which makes this such a delightful project.
From when this creative idea first started brewing in that wood house in L.A. to choosing these images, this process of bringing a difficult project from nothing to completion is very important. In the future I’ll encourage every designer to learn from this, and remember that a design isn’t something that is completed in a day or two or even a month; it often has to brew in your mind for a year or more.
As for everyone who gets a copy of this artwork, I just hope it will make an impression on them.
Xiao Qing-yang – In 2005, he was nominated for Best Recording Package for "The Wandering Accordion", becoming the first Taiwanese ever nominated for a Grammy. In 2007 he received another nomination in the same category for "White Horse", and in 2008 he was nominated in the category Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package for the album "Poems & Songs."
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