Sa Ding Ding(萨顶顶) is a Chinese folk singer and songwriter. She is of mixed Han and Mongolian ancestry, and sings in languages including Mandarin, Sanskrit, Tibetan, as well an imaginary self created language to evoke the emotions in her songs. She also plays traditional instruments such as the guzheng and matouqin (horse-head fiddle).
Biography
Born in Inner Mongolia, Sa Ding Ding was influenced by the music of the ethnic minorities while living with her grandmother in Inner Mongolia until the age of 6. She also became interested in Buddhism and taught herself Tibetan and Sanskrit. Later on, she moved to Beijing to study philosophy and music at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music.
By the time she turned 18, she released her first album entitled Dong Ba La under the name 周鹏 (Zhou Peng), awarding her with the title of China’s Best Dance Music Singer.
In 2006, “Holy Incense” was used as the theme song for the movie Prince of the Himalayas, directed by Sherwood Hu.
In mid-2007, she released Alive, now available physically and as a download in many countries. The Hong Kong release of the album features a DVD containing music videos, a remix of “Alive”, making of footage and a Chinese version of “Mama Tian Na”, not featured on the album.
In 2008 she won the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for the Asia-Pacific region, as well as releasing a two track single called Qin Shang.
Ding Ding composed a song with Eric Mouquet of Deep Forest called Won’t Be Long to raise funds for disaster relief after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The song was made available on Mouquet’s Deep-Projects website. Mouquet and Ding Ding have collaborated on a forthcoming album Deep China.
Most recently, Ding Ding has appeared at Womad and the Harrogate Festival in the UK. On October 6, her official English website was updated with information about a European tour, going from November 7th to 17th, making stops in Germany, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Las Palmas, Australia and New Zealand.
For Chinese composer He Xuntian’s 2008 album, Tathāgata, Ding Ding contributed the vocals for the second track, entitled “Da ta qie da” (达塔伽达).
Her next album is reportedly due out worldwide in July 2009, with six songs in Chinese.
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