In less than two years, Taiwanese rock band Mixer (麋先生) has managed to put out an album and secure its first prize at the Golden Melody Awards; now the five-man group is preparing for its first overseas performances, set for Japan and South Korea.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that the group of young musicians is to perform in Tokyo and Fukuoka in Japan, and Busan in South Korea from Monday through Friday next week as part of a program called Vocal Exchange.
“We feel honored and happy to perform in Japan and South Korea and introduce our music to the audiences there,” lead vocalist Wu Sheng-hao (吳聖皓) said.
The group, which won the Best Band title for its album Circus Movement (馬戲團運動) at the 25th Golden Melody Awards in June, is to stage three 45-minute shows during the tour, its agent said.
Vocal Exchange aims to promote international youth exchanges and highlight the creativity and talent of young Taiwanese artists, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Vanessa Shih (史亞平) said at a send-off event.
Taiwan’s representative offices in Japan and South Korea are helping arrange shows and meetings to promote such interactions, she said.
She also thanked CTBC Bank Co for funding the program.
At the ceremony, Mixer performed two songs.
The ceremony was attended by several ministry officials as well as Japanese and South Korean diplomats.
Interchange Association, Japan Taipei Office Secretary-
General Takashi Hamada said that the Japan performances would help promote people-to-people interactions and exchanges in music and culture. The association represents Japanese interests in Taiwan in the absence of bilateral diplomatic ties.
South Korean Representative to Taiwan Cho Baek-sang said he was confident that the program would increase interaction among the three nations as well.
Cho spoke about his office’s plans for a Taipei event celebrating South Korea’s national day early next month, which aims to bring together musicians from South Korea and Taiwan.
The Vocal Exchange program is similar to a series of overseas performances in 2012 sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which saw award-winning Aboriginal singer Suming (舒米恩) and his band travel to Palau, Kiribati and Fiji.
Shih said she hopes for further public-private partnerships in the future to promote youth exchanges and flex Taiwan’s soft power on the international stage.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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