Yesterday’s opening of the Taipei Music Center (TMC) marked a “big day” for the nation’s popular music industry, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said.
“Over the past few decades, Taiwan has been the center of Mandarin pop music,” Tsai said at an opening ceremony at the center in Nangang District (南港).
To workers who have been involved in the construction, Tsai said: “You have not just built a building, you have built the future of Taiwanese pop music.”
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many musical artists have seen their performances canceled or their income fall, she said.
“The opening of the TMC means that Taiwanese pop music is about to restart,” Tsai said, adding that fans from across the nation should support their favorite artists by attending concerts at the center.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) and center chairwoman Kay Huang (黃韻玲) also attended the ceremony.
“In everyone’s mind, there are some familiar songs. This is the magic of pop music,” Ko said.
“We hope Taiwan’s music talent can gather at the center, and make this a temple of Asian pop music,” Ko added.
“Culture is the soul of a nation,” Su said, adding that the Ministry of Culture’s budget has seen a “rapid increase” since Tsai took office in 2016.
“We look forward to this place to give performers a stage for them to play wonderful music,” he said.
The center features a performance hall that can accommodate up to 6,000 people, exhibition spaces, facilities for rehearsal and music education, and an outdoor performance space for up to 3,000 people, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the Maritime Cultural & Popular Music Center in Kaohsiung is also expected to celebrate its opening this year, the ministry said.
The TMC is to hold two opening performances, themed “Hi! TMC is opening”, on Saturday next week.
A free concert featuring Boon Hui Lu (文慧如), Accusefive (告五人), PiHai Ryan (屁孩 Ryan), Karencici (林愷倫), Lou Jun-shuo (婁峻碩) and Murmurshow (慢慢說) is to be held from 3pm to 5pm at the center’s outdoor performance space, according to the center’s Web site.
From 7pm to 9pm, a ticketed concert is to be held in the performance hall, featuring singers Lala Hsu (徐佳瑩) and Waa Wei (魏如萱), and the band Oaeen (魚丁糸), it said.
Tickets to the concert are priced NT$699 to NT$1,099 and can be purchased through a link on the center’s Web site.
The ceremony for the 31st Golden Melody Awards is also scheduled to be held at the center on Oct. 3, according to the awards’ Web site.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas