Checking in with Dawen (王大文)

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It’s an unbearably hot summer day as I trek through the streets of Taipei, eager to enter an air conditioned building. I search for Eslite Bookstore. That’s where Dawen Wang and I are meeting. The last time we chatted was some five years ago at my alma mater, UIUC. "Back when I had a shaved head and was 20lbs heavier," Dawen would tell me later, as we settled outside a coffee shop. “I was [...] really, really struggling," he reminisced, "Now, I struggle in different ways. But back then, wow…

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Watch Mree Perform Live at UIUC

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The Taiwanese American Students Club is excited to welcome the one and only MREE to the UIUC campus! Come watch her perform live right at the Courtyard Cafe and discuss her music, career and more!! This event is FREE - first come first serve! You may have heard her cover of "Fame" featured on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy", or her beautiful "Simple and Clean" cover while perusing the internet. Taiwanese American singer-songwriter Mree (Marie Hsiao) started by performing cover songs on YouTube since…

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A Moment With Mree

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org’s Kristina Lin and Ho Chie Tsai ventured to Portland, Oregon to meet with musical artist Marie Hsiao, simply known as Mree. With over 80 thousand subscribers on her YouTube channel, she has carved a niche for herself showcasing her unique and ambient "folktronica" sound. Even if you haven't heard her name before, there's a good chance you have heard her voice. In recent years, her original song "Santa Catcher" was featured in a Target commercial, and her cover of the 80's…

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Introducing Treya

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Meet Treya -- a Brooklyn-based musician recently discovered by Amazing Artists USA. From the moment you hear her sing the first note, the warmth and strength of her uniquely textured voice will resonate with your soul. Her "voice is compared to Fiona Apple, Billie Holliday and Nina Simone. [She...] has the power to move audiences to tears with her dynamic range, emotional depth, and grace." Amazing CEO Paul Campbell signed her as the very first Amazing Artist, after which her first major show…

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Vienna Teng Performance in Berkeley, CA

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Vienna Teng has released AIMS, her most uptempo, pop-influenced album to date, produced by Cason Cooley (Katie Herzig, William Fitzsimmons). On her latest recording, the celebrated singer-songwriter embraces a radically different approach to songwriting and production: bringing unfinished fragments of music into the studio, then working with software instruments and Cooley’s all-star cast of local Nashville musicians to craft them into songs. A world away from the solitary, piano-based songwriting…

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FASCINOMA: This Musical Taiwanese Cat Can Sing The Beatles

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org's Ho Chie Tsai catches up with Taiwanese American singer-songwriter Alanna Lin aka Fascinoma as she works on her latest project recording covers of Beatles songs. She has had a strong following since her days performing shows around Los Angeles and since one of her songs became "quasi-famous amongst fans of American Dad on FOX". The ballad, "I'm Walking This Road Because You Stole My Car (Don't Go)," was used for a love scene between a boy and a cat. Seriously, the song is…

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In Step with Alice Tong: Prelude to Progression

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A look into the past year and a half of a talented singer-songwriter's passionate journey through life & music. by HoChie Tsai photos courtesy of Anna Wu & Shu-Jon Mao Part I. Prelude January 25, 2009. Somewhere on the Internet. Sometime in early 2009, I am introduced by email to singer-songwriter Alice Tong through one of our close friends and collaborators, Jason Lee, of TurtlistMedia.com, who at that time was helping to organize the Midwest Intercollegiate Taiwanese…

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