April 28, 2016 – The “2016 Golden Melody Awards and Festival (GMA)” kicked off today in Taiwan. A press conference was held today by Taiwan’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, Ministry of Culture (MOC), marking the start of this year’s Golden Melody series of events. “Every year, the GMA events seek to drive new energy into the Mandopop music industry. Last year, from the spectacular production of the Awards Ceremony to the business matching system introduced by the Golden Melody Festival, the entire GMA was organized with the aim of elevating the events beyond their domestic roots,” said Chung-Jen Chang, the Bureau’s Director-general. “The GMA successfully drew the attention from both the international and domestic markets, showcasing the diversity of Taiwan’s music culture. The events are brought to new heights each year, thanks to the passion and efforts of the domestic music industry professionals.”
Branded the “GMA”, the Golden Melody series of events consist of Golden Melody Awards and Golden Melody Festival. The 2016 Golden Melody Festival provides a B2B (Business-to-Business) business matching platform via an online registration platform, building a collaboration framework between the music and various other industries. There are also “Speed Meeting” and “Pitching” events that facilitate communications between domestic and international music industry professionals. The GMA events aim to establish Taiwan as the center of Mandopop in Asia. In 2015, the GMA saw close to 300 business matching events in total transaction value of approximately NT$430 million.
This year, “GMA Talk” will be the first to be kicked off among the series of events. JJ Lin, the popular singer, songwriter, record producer and actor, will share his story of success with students. The “Golden Melody Academia” event invites students majoring in audio-visual related subjects to produce music videos for singers Boxing and Waa Wei; their final projects will become part of GMA’s “Showcase” performances and be presented in the GMA exhibitions. Additionally, to cultivate talents in the music industry, the “Workshop” events bring in well-known industry professionals to discuss topics such as recording engineering, music arrangements and DJ techniques. These educational events are part of the efforts to encourage more talented people to pursue a music career, further strengthening the already blossoming industry.
The “Showcase” series of performances feature a group of performers that are stronger than ever. 12 groups of singers will be performing, including Waa Wei, murmurshow, JiaJia, Boxing, Monkey Pilot, Chalaw Basiwali, PASSEPIED, Matzka, PoeTek, Starr Chen, My Skin Against Your Skin and Nick Chou. Among them, the performance by the Japanese band PASSEPIED is made possible by the success of the 2015 GMA. Last year, representatives from the Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM) expressed their interests to collaborate with the GMA after attending the 2015 Golden Melody Festival. The collaboration took place in the form of artist exchanges between the two important music festivals. With such international recognition of Mandopop music industry’s growth prospects, the Taiwanese music industry faces a bright future in the international market.
This year’s GMA is brought to you by Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd. (TTV), the Executive Organizer, and Recording Industry Foundation in Taiwan (RIT), the Cooperation. The Golden Melody Awards Ceremony has once again invited renowned producer Cheng-Chuan Chen as the Production Director. RIT’s 13 member record companies (Avex, B’in, Forward, Gold Typhoon, HIM, JVR, Linfair, ROCK, Sony Taiwan, Seed, Universal, Warner Music and WIND) and non-members, along with their artists, will spare no efforts to take the events to new heights.
The “2016 Golden Melody Awards & Festival” will take place on June 22nd through June 24th at the hotel Humble House Taipei. The Festival brings together a variety of industry representatives that come from fields including cinema, television, telecommunication, gaming, digital technology and many others. The Festival aims to facilitate cross-border and cross-industry business matching opportunities through its series of events: Conference, Business Matching Center, Pitching, Speed Meeting, Exhibition (this year’s theme: visual technology), Showcase, GMA Talk, Workshops and Golden Melody Academia. The 27th Golden Melody Awards Ceremony will be held on June 25th at the Taipei Arena. All are welcome!
