Festival Pass: Taiwan World Music Festival

A riverside park on the northern edge of Taipei is a pleasant location for the Taiwan World Music Festival. What’s particularly good are the views of the mountains that circle the city to the north, because in the heart of the city itself all views are obscured by high-rise buildings. There are two open-air stages, an indoor stage, a tent and lots of small kiosks for food and shopping opportunities – clothes, music, even haircuts!

However, the park is open to the wind and last year the weather was unseasonably rainy: the last day of the festival had to be cancelled due to torrential rain. This year, the festival will be held indoors at the Taipei Music Center in the east of the city.

Alena Murang with her sape’

There have been six editions of the festival so far and the musical mix is local bands and artists from the region plus some from further afield. Funding comes from the Ministry of Culture and last year, alongside bands from Taiwan, there were groups from the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Estonia. “We want to export Taiwan’s culture and import international artists for our audiences,” Peiti Huang, the artistic director, explains. “We had Yemen Blues in 2018 and they made a big impact. We want to educate our local audience as well, which is why we brought Hey String from Korea and Talahib People’s Music, a pretty big band from the Philippines.”

The predominant culture in Taiwan is, of course, Mandarin Chinese. That’s the local language, although apparently Taiwan Chinese has some of its own particular characteristics. However, what gives Taiwanese music an interesting twist is the strong Aboriginal influence. The Indigenous population is around 550,000, representing only 2.3 percent of the population, but their musical profile is rather stronger than that suggests. Last year there were two Aboriginal singers: Ilid Kaolo, who is Amis, and her slightly sweet-sounding songs address difficult issues, like parents having to leave children with grandparents when they go to work in the city; and Paudull, who is Puyuma, and works as a policeman in the south-east of the country. Rock band ChuNoodle and Pei-Shu Huang sing in Hakka, a southern Chinese language, brought to Taiwan centuries ago by Chinese settlers. However, Pei-Shu Huang’s concert was a pretty stiff choral set-up which didn’t appeal at all.

Talahib People’s Music

The band that most impressed me in the whole festival was Talahib People’s Music from the Philippines – not so very far away – because they totally fitted in with Taiwan’s Indigenous aesthetic and were punchy and direct in their articulation of it. They were nine onstage with a rocky but tuneful guitar-led sound and lots of percussion. They formed in 2000 and are fighting for the Indigenous and marginalised people of the Philippines by helping to articulate and circulate their problems. One of their powerful young female singers, Boogs Villareal, declared on stage, “Thank you for helping us amplify the voices of the minorities through our music. This next song is for Indigenous people around the world. We love you.” This is a band that one is unlikely to encounter in Europe – unless WOMAD or some other festival picks them up – which is where Taiwan World Music Festival’s efficacy in showcasing the music of the wider region really shines.

Alena Murang is Kelabit from Sarawak, Malaysia and was one of the first women to play the sape’ lute. She’s a big fan of Taiwan and its Aboriginal cultures. “My experience has mostly been of the Indigenous Taiwanese,” she says. “It’s always been lovely connecting with them and they’ve been surprised at the similarities we have. The Kelabit language is similar to Paiwan [one of the Indigenous Taiwanese languages] and there are similar songs in both languages. I love performing in Taiwan, I’ve performed a lot in festivals in the US and Europe, but Taiwan tops. There are also a lot of women involved in the music industry here which is nice.”

Taipei’s Confucian Temple

Although financed by the government, The Taiwan World Music festival is run by Wind Music, a Taiwanese label that’s been running for over 30 years with a particular interest in Aboriginal and spiritual music. They’ve recorded a whole series of CDs of the 16 Aboriginal tribes of Taiwan.

“We are keen to attract the local expat audience [and there are a lot in Taipei], because they are interested in this wider musical spectrum as well as the local scene,” says Huang. Tickets are reasonably priced at 800 Taiwanese dollars (£20) per day, with discounts for a three-day pass. “We think it’s important you have to pay to see the performances. There are so many free performances these days and it devalues the music.”

Artists confirmed for 2023’s festival so far include ADG7 from South Korea, Balaklava Blues from Ukraine/Canada and Outlet Drift from Taiwan.

Alongside the festival, Taipei is a huge and exciting city – with a population of 2.6 million, although somehow it feels like more! The food is extraordinary, with restaurants of every type and night markets with local delicacies, although the appropriately named stinky tofu is an acquired taste. Artistic highlights are the huge and internationally renowned National Palace Museum – with many treasures brought from mainland China – and nearby the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, which gives a good background to the Indigenous communities. None of the Taipei temples are particularly old, but the Bao’an temple (Yuanshan metro) in the north of the city is a beautiful building and the nearby Confucian temple has an excellent exhibition about Confucian ritual music and performances at the weekend. The Dihua Street area is great for markets, food shopping and eating.

The Taiwan World Music Festival will take place October 12-15. For further information, please visit: wmftaiwan.com