CHINA: China's new musical sensation is based on the formula of beautiful women playing traditional music, reports Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Asia's latest musical sensation is 12 beautiful girls who gaze dreamily into the distance and sway slightly as they play traditional Chinese music to a slow backbeat.
This was never going to go down well with the purists but the band, rather prosaically known as the 12 Girls Band, is causing a storm in Asia with its brand of new age folk music and is shifting millions of CDs
On stage, the 12 Girls members sway gently as they pluck and stroke ancient instruments like the erhu, the guzheng, or the venerable yangqin.
Wang Xiaojing, the Svengali behind 12 Girls, admits a lot of the audience just shows up to admire the view.
He has no problem with that. "This is traditional music with charm, played by beautiful young girls," says Mr Wang, who always wears a black leather jacket and sunglasses.
"People come to a show not only to listen but to look as well. So I chose some pretty girls, dressed them in fashionable outfits and made the show look good. These days music has to be good looking. The looks and the music are equally important," says the promoter.
Taking their cue from violinist Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson and Bond, the British classical quartet dubbed the 'classical Spice Girls', the success of 12 Girls is based on a simple formula: traditional music played by beautiful women.
Chinese critics describe 12 Girls as 'folk techno-acoustic fusion' but Mr Wang prefers 'visual folk music'.
At a photo shoot in Beijing, the musicians are draped on couches and chairs in a café, their instruments put aside for the time being.
Most of them are busy sending text messages on their mobile phones.
Founded in June 2001, they were picked from a large group of classically trained musicians.
"All of us started to learn how to play from a very young age, studying seriously from when we were 11 or 12, you have to in China," says Yang Songmei, 24.
Mr Wang set up a series of auditions and attracted over 100 young women from the country's top music schools, including the China Conservatory of Music.
The experiment is paying off. 12 Girls album 'Beautiful Energy', released in July last year, has sold two million copies. 'The Miracle' has sold 380,000 copies, and a live album has sold 200,000 copies, making the group China's most successful musical export last year. The big market for 12 Girls so far has been Japan. Mr Wang is dismissive of the Chinese market where he says rampant piracy means trying to sell CDs is pointless.
But he loves the lucrative Japanese market.
"The Japanese like young women and that's an important reason why people like our music there. The economy is not so good in Japan and they need comforting music. They listen to our music before they go to the office, during their lunch breaks," he says.
Ms Sun Yuan, 23, is under few illusions about why Japanese people throng the halls to see the women. "We are very popular in Japan, it's true. Maybe it's because they think we are pretty girls?" she says.
The group plays works by traditional composers but its repertoire also includes western and Japanese songs.
The musicians are enjoying their success, despite their hectic schedule, and they see it as payback time for years of practice and denial as a child.
"When we were children starting out learning to play our instruments, it was tough, other kids were off playing games and having fun but we had to practice our instruments the whole time, we had no time for fun. It's always been our dream to combine the two, making music and having fun," says Ms Yang.
Constant touring is a strain, though she insists the girls do not fight when they are on the road.
"For 10 or 12 months of the year we live together so in the three years we've been together, I think we've become very good friends. Sometimes personalities clash and people have different points of view, but we always try to be tolerant of each other," says Ms Yang.
Being one of 12 Girls is not good for your love life.
"Anyone who falls in love with us is falling in love with someone who never goes home. Mr Wang says no one will ever fall for us. We are a band composed of only single women. We go to a show, get made up, perform, go home to our hotel and have a bath.
"That's it. And our schedule is filled up until the end of next year," she says.
Mr Wang has been in the Chinese music industry a long time and has established links with many musicians in China over the years, including power rocker and sometime dissident Cui Jian.
"I am a big fan of traditional music. As a youngster I had no opportunity to listen to western music. In the 1980s I listened to western music and this brought me around to the fusion idea," Mr Wang said.
There has been criticism of the band from the purists, with some trad fans saying 12 Girls degrades the instruments they are playing, but Mr. Wang doesn't care.
"I would like to take the 12 Girls Band up the red carpet of the Grammys," he says.