More than 90 Taoist musicians from the Chinese mainland have left here Sunday for Taipei to attend three concerts that will be held in late July and early Autumn to showcase the country's thousand-year-long traditional Taoist music.

Jointly sponsored by top Taoist associations from the two sides, the programs of the Cross-Straits Taoist Music Concerts will include ones by both mainland and Taiwan based choirs. The concerts will be respectively held on July 20, July 26 and August 3, in Taipei, Tainan and Taizhong, three key places in north, south and central Taiwan.

According to the China Taoist Association (CTA), the long-waited performance will be the largest exchange activity between the Taoists from across the Taiwan Straits, which they believe will play greater role in promoting further exchanges between the Taoist followers from the two sides.
Five of the mainland's most famous Taoist music choirs from Longhu Mountain, Suzhou, Wudang Mountain, Qingcheng Mountain and Qingyang Temple, will all deliver their masterpieces to the audience.

"The event is one that bears deep cultural characteristics," said vice CTA president Zhang Jiyu, who is also head of the mainland music delegation. "We mainland Taoists attach great significance to it."

Taoism from the two sides, he said, have grown from the same root and shared the same origins and the same belief.

"The purpose that we hold the performance is to set up a platform that serves to channel the feeling and souls of the people from the two sides so as to jointly promote China's traditional culture," said Zhang.

Taoist music is one used by Taoists when holding ceremonies, celebrate the birthdays of gods, pray for good fortune, subdue or get rid of evils, release souls from purgatory and other religious activities.

As one of the world's most ancient religious music, Taoist music contains the basic religious belief and aesthetic theory both in music pattern and rhyme, forming their own characteristics.

As a major part of China's traditional music, Taoist music have many works rendered as masterpieces of China's folk music. 

(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2005)