China's first official campus music festival kicked off on Sunday in Beijing, aiming to promote the creation of original campus music, a process which has been cooling down in recent years. The music festival will last six months.

Over 100 colleges and universities have participated and will vote for a dozen awards entitled "College Students' Favorites" during this festival.

Director, Feng Xiaogang and pop singers Zhang Yadong, Xiaoke attended the opening ceremony, acting as representatives of the "Honor Group", along with established national musicians, Gu Jianfen and Qiao Yu.

Some one hundred famous people from the art circle will form this "honor group", striving to enlarge the influence of campus music. People on the "Honor Group" list also include renowned musician Tan Dun, Ma Youyou, well-known pop singer Cai Qin, Emil Chau, Andy Lau and big names from the film circle, such as An Lee, Zhang Yimou, Feng Xiaogang, and Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chau.

The theme song of this festival will be created in an unprecedented relay-race-like way, such that famous musician Qiao Yu and Yan Su write the first and last sentence of the lyrics respectively, while the middle part will be left to the brainstorming of college students.

Waves of campus music have hit the country twice in the past. The first craze came around the middle of the 1980s, led by Taiwan male singer Luo Dayou.

Then not until 1990, when two mainland singers, Gao Xiaosong and Lao Lang, came onto the stage, did campus music once again gain a stronger foothold in the music world. The two have created a number of campus ballads, each striking a chord with contemporary college students.

However, the past decade didn’t see any obvious rise of campus music. This initial campus music festival has therefore been launched, in an attempt to encourage more original campus music and sustain a new drive in the development of Chinese musical culture.

(CRI.cn April 23, 2007)