Friday, July 1, 2011

Alan Dawa Dolma! A female Chinese-Tibetan singer active in the Japanese music industry


Alan Dawa Dolma (Tibetan: Alan Dawa Dolma ཨ་ལན་ཟླ་བ་སྒྲོལ་མ་; simplified Chinese: 阿兰达瓦卓玛; traditional Chinese: 阿蘭達瓦卓瑪; pinyin: Ālán Dáwǎzhuōmǎ; born in July 25, 1987), professionally known as alan (Japanese: アラン, Chinese: 阿兰 or 阿蘭), is a female Chinese-Tibetan singer active in the Japanese music industry. Discovered by Avex Trax at an audition in China in 2006, she made her debut in Japan the following year. Her main producer and composer is Kazuhito Kikuchi and she is also known for playing the erhu.

In 2009, her ninth Japanese single "Kuon no Kawa" debuted at #3 on the Oricon weekly charts, the highest ever by a singer from China.
















A native of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China, Alan was born in Kangding, but grew up with her grandparents in nearby Danba, often referred to as "Beauty Valley". The name "Alan", which is in fact her official surname, is a self-created shortened form of a combination of the sinified Tibetan names of her parents. Her given name "Dawa Dolma" means "Moon Goddess" in Tibetan. Alan's father was a local government official and her mother was a singer in the local Art Troupe. She started to play the erhu at an early age, and in 1997 left her hometown for the Affiliated Middle & High School of the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, after ranking first in the erhu audition as a fourth grader.

In 2003 she was accepted to the PLA Art Academy in Beijing and double majored in vocal music and erhu. Playing the erhu, she performed traditional Chinese music with a group of girls at the 2006 gala performance near Cairo, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of China-Egypt diplomatic ties.

During this time, Alan also performed as a singer throughout China. In 2005 she released her first Chinese album, Sheng Sheng Zui Ru Lan, covering songs by more established C-pop singers. In October 2006, selected to represent mainland China together with Wei Chen (with whom she later collaborated for Jia You! Ni You ME!), Alan won second place at the 9th Asia New Singer Competition, narrowly losing to Filipina singer Maria Donna Taneo by 0.005 points.

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