The 20th Golden Melody Awards’ (金曲獎) ceremony handed out honors in artistic and traditional music categories at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (國父紀念館) on June 6 with 72 works selected from 1,508 entries competing in 14 categories.
One of the surprise winners was sax player Tung Shun-wen (董舜文). The first-time nominee beat veterans Matthew Lien and Gerald Shih (史擷詠) to pick up the Best Arrangement Award for his jazz album One Day (歡日記).
First-time winner Li Ching-fang (李靜芳) welled up when her independently produced Taiwanese opera album was announced as the Best Traditional Opera Album Award.
Highly esteemed for his modern compositions, composer and educator Lu Yan (盧炎), who died of cancer last year aged 78, was honored for his contribution to Moving Sound (聲動), produced by Music Forum (十方樂集). A compilation of works by contemporary composers in Taiwan, the album was also awarded top honors in the Best Classical Album category.
With seven accomplished musicians and music groups vying for the award, the hotly contested Best Performance gong went to guzheng (古箏) player Ren Jie (任潔). China’s renowned kunqu (崑曲) artist Wen Yu-hang (溫宇航) received the Best Traditional Interpretation Award, while Taiwanese erhu (二胡) player Mia Wang (王明華) took home the Best Crossover Music Album Award for her mold-breaking renditions of jazz numbers.
The Lifetime Contribution Award went to Wu Jau-nan (吳兆南), the revered maestro of Chinese stand-up comedy, or cross talk (相聲), who promotes and studies the ancient folk art.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
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April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
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