Linguist & Musician: Gene Hsu

[This webpage is updated in July 2024]

Gene Hsu @copyright

Gene's wish is to bridge the gap between the West and the East by singing East Asian literature aloud in English!

Gene is a multilingual singer-songwriter, ethnomusicologist and researcher as well as a linguist, translator, interpreter based in the UK. She started multilingual song writing in 2013. Her first singing performance dates back to primary-school era. She is a born singer and has been working so hard on her career in music and languages.

Gene Hsu’s research focuses on music and translation/ languages, which involves intercultural and interdisciplinary studies. Her independent project “Music and Translation” was awarded the CIOL certificate and qualification for its innovative nature and the high mark achieved. Her papers have been presented at research conferences globally.

🎤 Gene has performed as a singer worldwide where she gained lots of experience singing solo in front of large audiences, so being in front of a crowd is not new for her. For instance, she has performing experience at various events, parties, open mics, and musical festivals in Asia, Europe and North America.

Moreover, Gene has a pleasant and easy-going personality with the ability to get along well with people with various backgrounds as well managers, agents and producers. She often listens to music and has the ability to learn new lyrics and to adapt to new surroundings quickly. Gene has the physical strength and stamina to give regular performances and the flexibility to travel to different locations to perform.

🎶 Furthermore, Gene has organized musical events since 2016 via a project she established: “Voice of Music-lover”. The main purpose of organizing music events: To share and discuss music and songs including classical, pop, jazz, folk, rock and roll and other genres of music at home and abroad.

Gene loves song writing and singing in multiple languages. Gene has been passionate about sharing good East Asian music and traditional culture with the rest of the world, part of which, by singing original English versions of the songs that she wrote in Chinese and Japanese languages in her performances.

She can sing songs in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese. Furthermore, she wrote and sang English songs translated from ancient Chinese poems in her vocal performances, which is also part of her research.

Gene hopes her theoretical and practical experience can furnish workable contribution to the relevant research in translation and interpreting, languages, ethnomusicology and musicology.

🎼 All in all, Gene's research and music are unique.

Gene draws attention to moral, historical and cultural significance of traditional languages in her research and music, for instance, the original meanings of traditional Chinese characters, and pays attention to song analysis, song cover and song writing, and the differences between song writing, song dubbing, song cover and song translation.

Besides her own original songs, Gene writes singable English lyrics from ancient and modern Chinese poems, and translates Mandarin and Cantonese songs into singable English songs. She is a researcher in Ethnomusicology and focuses on music and translation/interpreting, in particular, singability of translated songs between different language pairs.

In the West, it is not common to find genuine East Asian music, arts and classics that can demonstrate unique characteristics of East Asian culture, not mention to composing ancient poems into singable songs. Gene's performance itself demonstrates ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity of this world. She can bring non-East Asian people with enjoyable vocal performance, in which Gene can also showcase the genuine traditional Chinese culture, including the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry by singing them aloud in English.

Thus, Gene's performances would be perfect fusion of the West and the East, Tradition and Modern. Gene's performances would definitely bring an innovative and brand-new experience for audiences and organizers.

♭ ♮ ♯ Gene's Music Channel (performance):

https://www.ganjingworld.com/channel/1fs719eao903JqDIdMOVtrxKx1kt0c?tab=shorts&subtabshowing=latest