Attendees at the award ceremony of the Galaxy Awards at the 13th China Art Festival in Xiongan New Area, North China's Hebei province, on September 15 [Photo/Wechat account: Beautiful Bazhong]

A Yangqin-style (Chinese hammered dulcimer) artistic performance, entitled "the Roads to Sichuan" and jointly composed by the Bazhong Municipal Cultural Center and the Bazhou District Bureau of Culture & Tourism, won the Galaxy Award (for amateur artists and community culture) at the 13th China Art Festival in Xiongan New Area, North China's Hebei province, on September 15.

The 2022 Galaxy Awards, which was established in 1991 and held every three years, drew the attendance of 145 artistic programs and 32 mass artistic performing delegations across the country.

Performers deliver a Yangqin-style artistic performance. [Photo/Wechat account: Beautiful Bazhong]

Performers rehearse the award-winning artistic performance. [Photo/Wechat account: Beautiful Bazhong]

The award-winning artistic performance, which was created under the coordination of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture & Tourism and the professional guidance of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Center, aimed to extol the historic transformation and development of Sichuan, especially the fast development of its transport network, through dialogues between renowned poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and a woman in the modern world that transcended time and space.

Early in 2019, producers of the Yangqin-style artistic performance drew inspiration from Li's well-known poem Perilous Journey to the Land of Shu in order to praise the achievements made by Sichuan in the improvement of its transport infrastructure, which has played a vital role in promoting the coordinated development between the province and neighboring regions.

During the process of their artistic creation, composers conducted extensive studies of the Yangqin and held in-depth exchanges with lyricists in a drive to better portray the images of both Li and modern women in Sichuan.

Bazhong invited national-level and provincial-level experts to polish and revise the Yangqin-style artistic performance after it entered the final of the Galaxy Awards. In addition, creators incorporated new elements and made adjustments to musical instruments to further enhance the artistic taste of the award-winning artistic program, while retaining the essence of the Yangqin, and accurately depict the images of the two principal characters.

In addition to "the Roads to Sichuan," there were six other entries from Sichuan in the final, setting a new historical record for the number of competing programs from the southwestern province at the high-level awards.