The concert series featuring Senuber Tursun, presented by Gaotai Performance, began in January 2024 with Love Is All We Need: Senuber Tursun New Year Concert at the Muqam Theatre of the Xinjiang Arts Theatre. Led by the Xinjiang Folk Orchestra, the production brought together more than one hundred musicians, performers, and production crew, becoming one of the region’s most widely discussed cultural events of the season. The concert received coverage from China Daily, Xinjiang Daily, and other media outlets. One music critic described it as “a rare concert in Xinjiang in recent years—deeply humanistic in spirit, moving across classical and folk traditions while carrying a distinctly contemporary sensibility.”
Throughout the first half of 2024, the series continued under the title Sing for Love: Senuber Tursun Concert, with performances at the Jiulongquan Spring Festival Gala stage in Kashgar, Yotkan Ancient City and Hotan Theatre in Hotan, and the Urumqi Concert Hall. Bringing together professional ensembles and independent musicians, the series sought to make high-quality live music accessible to broader audiences across the region while creating new encounters between established musical traditions and contemporary concert presentation.
On January 10, 2025, at the Aiyuehui City Concert Hall in Beijing, and January 12 at the JUSS Shanghai Centre Theatre in Shanghai, the project expanded beyond Xinjiang with Songs from Afar: Senuber Tursun Beijing–Shanghai New Year Concerts. The two performances brought Senuber’s music to audiences in two of China’s major cultural centres, further extending artistic and cultural exchange between Xinjiang, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Senuber Tursun studied composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and yangqin at the Xinjiang Arts Institute. Since the 1990s, she has released more than one hundred original songs and has performed concerts in dozens of cities around the world, including Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, and Milan. With a musical practice rooted in regional traditions while extending across folk, classical, and contemporary forms, Senuber Tursun has established an international presence as one of China’s distinctive contemporary musicians.
