Sa Dingding (simplified Chinese: 萨顶顶; traditional Chinese: 薩頂頂;
pinyin: Sà Dǐngdǐng)(born Zhou Peng (周鹏) ; December 27, 1983) is a
Chinese folk singer and songwriter. She is of mixed Han and
Mongolian ancestry, and sings in languages including Mandarin,
Sanskrit, Tibetan, as well an imaginary self-created language to
evoke the emotions in her songs.[1] She also plays traditional
instruments such as the guzheng and matouqin (horse-head
fiddle).
Born to a family of wage-earning class in Inner Mongolia, China
[2] inheriting Han Chinese ancestry from her father and Mongolian
ancestry from her mother, Sa Dingding was influenced by the music
of the ethnic minorities while living with her grandmother in Inner
Mongolia until age 6.[2] She also became interested in Buddhism and
taught herself Tibetan and Sanskrit. Later on, she moved to Beijing
to study music at the PLA Academy of Arts.
At age 18, she released her first album entitled Dong Ba La under
her birth name Zhou Peng, awarding her with the title of China’s
Best Dance Music Singer.
In 2006, "Holy Incense" was used as the theme song for the movie
Prince of the Himalayas, directed by Sherwood Hu.
In mid-2007, she released Alive, now available physically and as a
download in many countries. The Hong Kong release of the album
features a DVD containing music videos, a remix of "Alive", making
of footage and a Chinese version of "Mama Tian Na", not featured on
the album.
In 2008 she won the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for the
Asia-Pacific region, earning herself the chance to perform at the
Royal Albert Hall to a Western audience. In the same year, she also
released a two track single called "Qin Shang".[3]
Dingding composed a song with Eric Mouquet of Deep Forest called
"Won't Be Long" to raise funds for disaster relief after the 2008
Sichuan earthquake. The song was made available on Mouquet's
Deep-Projects website. Mouquet and Dingding have collaborated on a
forthcoming album Deep China.
Most recently, Dingding has appeared at Womad and the Harrogate
Festival in the UK. On October 6, her official English website was
updated with information about a European tour, going from November
7 to 17, making stops in Germany, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Las
Palmas, Australia and New Zealand.
http://youtu.be/-5tOvDX3T-Y