Yijia first appeared as a semi-finalist in the popular Chinese singer-songwriter talent show “Sing My Song” at the age of 16. After graduating high school with a certificate in composition, Yijia released her debut album “17” with Sony Records. In collaboration with Chinese and international acclaimed musicians such grammy winner Luca Bignardi, Liu Huan, and the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the album won “Media’s Choice Award” at the renowned 2015 CMA (Chinese Music Awards). Yijia was also nominated as “Best New Chinese Artist” at the “Chinese Media Music Awards” in the same year. Yijia has also done several cross-over collaborations in experiment of new sales format for physical albums. The song “Eventually” or “春上村树” was chosen as the theme song for Haruki Muarkami’s Chinese releasing of the book “Men Without Women” by the Shanghai Translation Publishing House. Xiaomi’s Earphone company 1MORE also released a product named after Yijia and features her music inside a USB attached to the Swarovski elements? and iF Industrial Design award winning earphone. Yijia aims to explore her interest in ethnomusicology and express her cultural identity through the fusion of traditional Eastern elements in her music. In 2016, Yijia moved to London in pursue of her education and now studies World Music and Ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London. Drawing inspirations from different music elements throughout time and history, especially from the Far East, Yijia hope to bring these under-exposed, and undermined sounds to people who enjoy music. As the founder of the band project, “The Sages”, through both original musical composition and adaptation of ancient traditional sounds, Yijia hopes to keep the tradition alive, and expand and diversify people’s musical taste and knowledge about interesting cultures and traditions other than their own.
