Li Jialian
01 · Lineage & Regional School
Li Jialian, Female, Han, from Chaohu, Anhui, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Chaohu Folk Songs (Ⅱ-6). The tradition is documented in Chaohu, Anhui. Within the regional tradition and school record of Chaohu Folk Songs in Chaohu, Anhui: Chaohu folk songs circulate mainly in Chaohu city of Anhui and the surrounding Wuwei, Lujiang and Hanshan districts and may be divided by genre into the three great categories of work chantey, mountain song and short tune; the rice-transplanting songs and fishing songs of the polder districts along the lake and the mountain songs of the hill country each have their own character, forming a circle of folk-song singing centred on the lake. Chaohu city lies in central Anhui, lapped by the river and ringed by the lake; within its borders is the “Hexian ape-man” site of three to four hundred thousand years ago, proving that this was once one of the birthplaces of Chinese culture. Along with the ancient history of Chaohu, Chaohu folk songs have gone through a process of evolution from simple to complex and from single to varied, and have been sung down to the present. After 1949 they were disseminated more widely. In March 1955 the Chaohu folk song Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers was sung by the peasant singers Hu Jiying and Liu Hongying in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai in Beijing, where they were warmly received by Mao Zedong and the first-generation leaders of the Party and the state.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
Female, Han ethnic group, born in December 1954, a native of Chaohu City, Anhui Province. Thereafter she studied folk-song singing while continuing her schooling. Drawing on the characteristics of her own voice and borrowing from the vocal methods of traditional opera, she enriched her timbre and formed a distinctive personal style. She sings Chaohu folk songs in local dialect, with clear diction and a strong vernacular flavour. Her renditions of Chaohu folk songs have a high, broad range, a pure and rounded tone and a limpid, sweet timbre. Within the documented technical tradition of Chaohu Folk Songs in Chaohu, Anhui: The people of Chaohu love to sing and to compose folk songs. The creative method of “sighting the wind and willowing”, that is, improvising, enables the clever singer to sing whatever he sees, wherever he goes and whatever work he does. Chaohu folk songs have the three great categories of work chantey, mountain song and short tune, complete in kind and rich in content. Of them one hundred and eleven have been included in the Anhui volume of the Compendium of Chinese Folk Songs, twenty in One Hundred Anhui Folk Songs, more than thirty in middle-school textbooks and in the teaching materials of the Shanghai and Central conservatories of music, and more than twenty recorded by the Shanghai record company and issued at home and abroad and presented to UNESCO for preservation. Representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs include Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers, Shouting the Rice-Transplanting Song, Sister Liu and Frightening the Eagle. The composing and singing of Chaohu folk songs have gone on without interruption and won many prizes in performances in the province and the country, giving them an important place among Anhui folk songs. Chaohu folk songs are an art form loved by the people of Chaohu, and carrying on and promoting them has important practical significance for enriching the people's cultural life. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers": One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs, sung in 1955 in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai. "Shouting the Rice-Transplanting Song": One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs. "Sister Liu": One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs. "Frightening the Eagle": One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs, sung in 1955 in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai.
Shouting the Rice-Transplanting Song
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
Sister Liu
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
Frightening the Eagle
One of the representative pieces of Chaohu folk songs.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
A national representative bearer of Chaohu Folk Songs, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. As a child she learned the Chaohu rice-transplanting songs from Zou Zhulian, a second-generation bearer of Chaohu folk songs. She has trained and instructed more than a thousand students.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
Chaohu city lies in central Anhui, lapped by the river and ringed by the lake; within its borders is the “Hexian ape-man” site of three to four hundred thousand years ago, proving that this was once one of the birthplaces of Chinese culture. Along with the ancient history of Chaohu, Chaohu folk songs have gone through a process of evolution from simple to complex and from single to varied, and have been sung down to the present. After 1949 they were disseminated more widely. In March 1955 the Chaohu folk song Sister-in-Law and Sister-in-Law Match Flowers was sung by the peasant singers Hu Jiying and Liu Hongying in the Huairen Hall at Zhongnanhai in Beijing, where they were warmly received by Mao Zedong and the first-generation leaders of the Party and the state.
05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage
National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.
| Bearer | Declared area | Roster code | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Li Jialian | Chaohu, Anhui | 05-2037 | This page |
06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。