At night, Sanlitun is illuminated by lights and bustling. The Red Pavilion in the North District, which has always been deeply bound to the new operas of the Beijing International Music Festival, has recently witnessed a return: the lights are dreamy, the rhythm is swinging, and on the stage, the singer Cheng Fangyuan has returned. She wears a black, neat and calm, and still has the iconic short hair that people remember.
Cheng Fangyuan seems to have changed, and it seems that it has not changed, what has she done in the past few years? It all starts with this concert.
Music doesn't have so many insurmountable chasms
Do you want to sing "Childhood" at the concert? To tell the truth, Cheng Fangyuan was a little resistant at first, she had sung it too many times. However, "Childhood" eventually appeared on the program list. "The audience is looking forward to it." Cheng Fangyuan understands that everyone wants to relive the mood of youth, but she can't always repeat herself, after adaptation, the carefree "Childhood" has become a Jamaican reggae style, and there is another flavor.
In recent years, Cheng Fangyuan has favored jazz and Latin music. "People's temperament is different at each age stage, and their interests are different." Cheng Fangyuan does not want to stay in a certain time period, and the road to music is always changeable. She studied la erhu in the folk music department of the Central Conservatory of Music, and after graduation, she worked as a performer in the former Central Orchestra. At that time, the orchestra was located in Hepingli, walking around in the troupe, often encountering masters such as Li Delun, Yan Liangkun, Sheng Zhonghua, AndeHai Liu and so on. For a few years, her neighbor was a trombone, and every morning, the long tone of practicing breath would sound on time, and the thunder would not move, and Cheng Fangyuan knew that it was already seven o'clock without looking at the watch, "That is the wake-up number of our family." Later, the trombone moved away, and Cheng Fangyuan just "stole joy" for a few days, and met a new neighbor in the corridor. "That's it." Cheng Fangyuan's heart was cold, because she saw the neighbor holding a "very infectious" sigh in his hand.
Cheng Fangyuan is so "immersed" in the rich atmosphere of classical music and ethnic music. While concentrating on practicing, privately, the young woman also began to sing. Once the yin and yang were wrong, because Li Guyi could not come, the famous composer Wang Mo invited Cheng Fangyuan to try to sing the TV series episode "Song of the Journey" that he had created. "Neither shy nor stingy." After practicing with the score, Cheng Fangyuan went into the studio to record, and all of a sudden everyone was "shocked". After that, when the orchestra's solo and solo teams performed, the leader brought Cheng Fangyuan. The first stop is the gymnasium in Jinan. In that era when the mind was just liberated, the bel canto singing method was still the mainstream, the singer had to wear a formal dress, hold hands together, the posture was dignified, the microphone was also standing on the stage, Cheng Fangyuan only wore very ordinary clothes, and after going on stage, he took the microphone in his hand. It wasn't clear exactly what she was going to sing, but the audience immediately began to applaud, "Everyone knows in a hazy way that you're going to sing pop songs, and there's something new coming out." ”
The show was quite sensational. Subsequently, at the 10,000-person stadium in Shanghai, this unique newcomer attracted the attention of the media, and a large number of reports surged and became a fire. After returning to Beijing, the leaders thought about it carefully and still felt that the popular songs did not fit the tone of the orchestra. When Cheng Fangyuan was planning to go back to La Erhu, Wang Kuntuoren, a famous singer and former head of the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe, asked her if she would like to sing? "Okay, I'd like to go!" Cheng Fangyuan "didn't want to think about it at all." In her early twenties, she officially entered the music world as a pop singer, embracing the image of guitar playing and singing, which has become an unforgettable scenery ever since.
In the forty years since then, Cheng Fangyuan has seen flowers and people, but to be fair, she is not very fond of huge performance venues such as gymnasiums, because "it is too far away from the audience." In 2013, Cheng Fangyuan did three concerts in the small theater, and she was impressed by the warm small field. At the Red Pavilion in Sanlitun, she once again encountered this wonderful experience of livehouse - the space is small, the audience is just away, and she has more possibilities to share her thoughts. When singing his lyrics song "Corazon of Sanlitun", Cheng Fangyuan first explained that "corazon" means "heart" in Spanish. As an authentic Beijing girl, she has witnessed the earth-shaking changes in Sanlitun, the record stores that disappear in the depths of time, and the handsome men and women and street photographers who can be seen everywhere on the streets today, intertwined into warm common memories in her faint words, often making everyone laugh with them.
Meet stories on the road that are not in the city
"Only when life flows to this stage can many words be said." Cheng Fangyuan said. At the moment of her hand, her deepest impression is casualness, which is not a state that can be easily disguised, "At this age, I am willing to make my life as wide as possible." "Practice songs behind closed doors, hold concerts, make a lot of money... Cheng Fangyuan thought about it and did not want to be so "detained".
Then get out there! In the years away from the public focus, travel and photography occupy a unique proportion in the life of Chengfangyuan. There is no "just let go of everything to go out" pride and determination, at first, travel is always intertwined with going out to work, and later, with the development of the country and society, there are more flights, visas are easier to do, and the possibility of going around the world to see is getting higher and higher. On a Spring Festival about ten years ago, Cheng Fangyuan and his friends flew for more than thirty hours to reach Argentina, and then traveled to Ushuaia at the top of South America and boarded a ship to the South Pole.
Cheng Fangyuan photography (this article uses all pictures taken in Morocco)
"It's shocking, it's dreamy, it's trance." Cheng Fangyuan describes the Pure Land at the end of the world in this way. A photograph preserves her memories: stocky penguins huddled together; through a row of ice, blue icebergs stretching all the way to the horizon...
The motivation to go to Antarctica is very simple, "I want to see the places I haven't seen." "However, compared to natural scenery, Cheng Fangyuan loves the temperature of humanity more." Cuba made her think, "That's so interesting! As long as you walk down the street, there will always be music. "Some float from people's windows, some flow on the strings of old men and women on the street, and people's happiness and underdeveloped economy form a sharp contrast." Cheng Fangyuan hit a taxi, the tattered seats were exposed sponge, lifted the front cover of the car, and it was full of parts made of drink bottles, "You can deal with it." ”
The topic of cars leads to another journey. In 2019, Cheng Fangyuan set off from Beijing, crossed Inner Mongolia, and traveled to Xinjiang by car. The road that seemed to lead to the sky was "hailing for a moment and a sunny day" and was long and lonely. The travelers and their stories are a pleasure that can be encountered but not sought. Cheng Fangyuan once met a Japanese boy riding a bicycle, he rode all the way from Europe, his face tanned. "He won't say a word Chinese." After greeting in English, Cheng Fangyuan found that his mobile phone card could not be used, and she asked worriedly: "How do you spend the night at night?" The young man pointed to the tent and water bottle tied to the back of the car. That kind of persistent and pure "walker" spirit made her very emotional. After chatting for a while, Cheng Fangyuan drove goodbye, had driven out of a distance, and she poured back again, leaving some money and drinking water.
She also met a middle-aged couple who had been riding forty days from Liaoning. Hearing that Cheng Fangyuan had come from Beijing, the couple said enthusiastically, "Beijing, our son is also in Beijing!" The invisible word "we" warmed up the day when the wind was raging.
Couples who stir-fry in a converted RV in a golden cup, "the best buns I've ever eaten in my life" with the aroma of onions and cumin... "These people and things are never encountered in the city." Cheng Fangyuan likes to be a "traveler". Along the way, photography is the most faithful companion, a record of life. Like many people, Cheng Fangyuan's contact with photography began with the point-and-shoot cameras of the nineties, and there was also a stage of "fever" for the instrument, indulging in the stimulation of light and shadow brought by large apertures and zoom. Now, Cheng Fangyuan often only carries mobile phones and micro-singles on the road. "Perspective is paramount." The same scenery fell in the eyes of different people, surging with a unique throbbing, which was the moment when Cheng Fangyuan wanted to press the shutter the most.
You don't have to label yourself
In Morocco, Cheng Fangyuan focuses her lens on tapestries, spinning threads, and wooden knick-knacks in the shape of cacti, and she is fascinated by the bright colors of high saturation. "North Africa is where I've always wanted to go." From the black-and-white movie "North African Spy", Cheng Fangyuan knows the desert country of Morocco and knows Casablanca. But really going there with a long-cherished wish, Casablanca has become "a boring big city". She prefers the old Fez, the labyrinth of streets and alleys that "walk in and get absolutely lost"; and Chefchaouen, where people paint large swaths of blue on the stairs and walls, like a fairy tale world.
It was the day when 2019 and 2020 intersected, flew back to China, and Cheng Fangyuan found that "the world has changed."
After the outbreak of the epidemic, the travelers who are concerned about the distance must re-examine the life in every inch. Bored, Cheng Fangyuan began to run, picking up the guitar and learning to sing songs that he had not had the opportunity to learn before. She practiced harder than ever, and a cocoon was worn out on her fingers. At that point, the performance stalled and the music returned to enjoyment "without any purpose" and a way of getting along with oneself.
"A lot of the audience thinks I'm 'fading out', but I've never been far from music." For example, the song "Corazon of Sanlitun", which comes from Cheng Fangyuan's album "All the Way Style" released in 2009, all the singles included in the album are lyrics by Cheng Fangyuan. In the era of self-media with huge traffic, Cheng Fangyuan is just not used to appearing on major social platforms. She tried to run an account that was updated daily and interacted with followers, which was laborious, and she quickly realized that "the mentality will change unconsciously." How many people have liked me? Did the person who left the message say I'm good, or scold me twice? "No one can completely escape the glare, high or low numbers. In the process, "I lost a lot of the joy of life itself, which is a point that I am more repulsive." ”
"The epidemic has made me let go of a lot of obsessions." It is not pretending to be detached, not singing a high-pitched voice, this is Cheng Fangyuan's inner words. If in the past she was still working hard and "too hard" to make a so-called "project", now "I don't want it, I prefer to go with the flow and enjoy the moment." Cheng Fangyuan never refuses the world dominated by young people at the moment, she loves to watch Li Xueqin and Zhou Qimo's talk shows, and she will also brush short videos, and when the Beijing International Music Festival sends invitations, she will naturally catch it. Like the gift of the "cultivator" given by the music in the underworld, the song practiced during the epidemic, this time it happened to be all used. In the Red Pavilion, she chatted and sang with the audience, in a relaxed state, very happy.
Having led the trend of the music world and traveled through the north and south, how does she define herself in the identity of a musician, photographer, "life home" and so on? "I still prefer musicians." However, Cheng Fangyuan felt that there was no need to label himself, and every vivid life did not have to be framed by a certain word.