TWENTY-ONE musicians from Bao’an District delivered 14 original songs at the Second Yangtai Mountain Forest Music Festival in Shiyan Subdistrict, which kicked off earlier this month at Shiyan Hall.

Six of the 14 songs, including rock ’n’ roll, folk and classical styles of music, were composed and performed by local musicians. They sang for Shiyan, a subdistrict that has been known among local residents for its natural landscape of mountains and lakes, its leisurely lifestyle and its emerging green technology.

The song, “Hello Shenzhen,” performed by the student chorus of Shiyan Public School, was dedicated to Shenzhen, which marks the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up this year. “Under the bamboo pavilion,” sung by young soprano Zhang Yu and local singer Wang Ruhua, was inspired by a hiking trail that is lined with bamboo trees on Yangtai Mountain in the subdistrict. The song won endless applause from the audience.

A Hakka-style folk song tells a heartbreaking but beautiful love story that happened in Shiyan. The story is about a couple in Shiyan that was separated after the husband was forced by a greedy landlord to search the mountains for herbs that make people immortal. As promised, the wife shouted to her husband to come home every afternoon. However, her husband hadn’t returned home after many years. The wife was overcome by missing her loving husband and left home to look for him on Yangtai Mountain. She saw a figure on top of the mountain but after reaching the summit she realized it was a man-shaped stone. The wife was so heartbroken that she was struck by lightning and was also turned into stone, facing the man-shaped stone. The two stones look like a couple who were keeping each other company. The village at the foot of the mountain was later named Yingren Stone Village to pay tribute to the love of the couple. Seven communities in Shiyan are home to Hakka people.

The efforts to compose original music are turning the music festival into a reputed calling card for Shiyan. (SD News)