Nanguan Music (Kaohsiung Bearer)

Nanguan is an ancient musical genre from Quanzhou in Fujian, called the "thousand-year pure sound," which reached Taiwan with Minnan settlers and has been passed on without break in the Tainan and Kaohsiung region. The Kaohsiung bearer Chen Yan-zhu was proclaimed by the Ministry of Culture as a bearer of the important traditional performing art "Nanguan music" and honoured as a "National Living Treasure," her singing preserving the austere style of the years before 1970.

Bearer Chen Yan-zhu has a clear voice of fine timbre and exacting skill; not only a singer, she also plays the pipa, erxian and sanxian, and has taught nanguan for many years with the Nansheng She in Tainan and around Kaohsiung, keeping the ancient scores and performance tradition alive in the south.

Nanguan music is a vital continuation of the Minnan musical tradition in Taiwan, and the Kaohsiung bearer's transmission holds important value for the study of Taiwanese traditional music, the evolution of Minnan culture and the preservation of ancient scores.