APD | Folk musician Leon Liu: pass through night and always pursue light

By APD writer Gong Chen

Chinese folk song musician Leon Liu’s new album press conference was held in Beijing on Tuesday, during which he talked about his new album, the nationwide concert tour and the project he has launched with famous music critics Guo Xiaohan.

Graduating from People’s Public Security University of China in 2015, Leon became a policeman before he stArted to pursue his music career in 2016. He attempted to make music by himself since 2011, and his original debut Grandpa has been played over 1.78 billion times on renren.com. Other works like Monica, the last train and South of Gaomidian are also pArticularly popular among young listeners. 

Leon is singing his new song Light at the press conference.

As a dark horse in an independent music domain, Leon obtained the Most Potential New Artiste Award of folk song at Live Power Awards (LPA), presented by Taihe Music Group.

Now, he is the musician of Enjoy Music Together, a music production center that highly values original and independent music and offers services including music production and release, digital copyright management, hosting concerts and musician publicity. 

Leon’s new album Shadows shines itself by releasing two title tracks Light vs Shadows, expressing people’s both positive and negative inwards, according to Leon.

He said the two songs describe the opposites of people’s inner life, i.e. one’s life could be both positive and negative, bright and dark, ideal and regretful. 

Wang Zihao, the arranger and guitarist of Leon’s band, said he made arrangement for the two songs within 15 days because of tight schedule. He had supposed to make one song, but finished two, which made it difficult for the band to make a choice. As the result, they innovated a two-title-track model.

After the successful holding of the concert tour in 16 Chinese cities in 2018, Leon and his band will stArt the new round of concert tour in May from eastern Chinese city of Wuxi. The tour, to be held in 34 Chinese cities, will last four months.

Leon and his band at the press conference.

In addition to completing his music plan, Leon said he has launched a 21-day Shadow project this year, aiming to call on his fans to form good habits and effectively use fragmented time. So far, the initiative has attracted thousands of his fans from 35 provinces. 

Leon is admired by his fans not only for his music but also his good characters such as positive, sincere, and ambitious.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)