China Original Folk Song Festival Brings 65 Groups to Inner Mongolia's Grasslands

Nearly 400 Performers Gather in Hohhot

The 2025 China Original Folk Song Festival opened on July 3 on the Chilechuan grasslands in Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, bringing together 65 groups and nearly 400 performers from across China. Organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the event puts regional voices and traditional music at the center of a gathering dedicated to cultural heritage.

The performances span 42 national intangible cultural heritage items and 23 provincial heritage projects. Pastoral songs opened the festival, connecting the sound of the opening ceremony with the grassland landscape around it.

For audiences, the program offers a chance to hear musical traditions from different regions and ethnic communities in one place. Choral performances, solo singing and traditional instruments show how people use music to express attachment to life, home and the places where their songs began.

The festival also sits within a wider effort to bring visitors to Inner Mongolia through music, crafts and encounters with local traditions. Its combination of performance, heritage preservation and tourism gives the gathering a purpose beyond entertainment: keeping inherited songs in public life while introducing them to new listeners.

What Makes This Festival Different?

First introduced in 2019, the China Original Folk Song Festival is a biennial event, meaning it takes place every two years. Its focus is on preserving and promoting indigenous Chinese folk music, with performers representing a broad range of ethnicities and musical styles.

Authenticity is central to the event. The songs and instruments carry distinctive regional sounds, while the singers communicate feelings about daily life and homeland. Together, the performances create something like a living museum, where heritage is heard and practiced rather than simply displayed.

The festival's development and this year's opening provide two milestones:

• 2019: The China Original Folk Song Festival was introduced as a recurring celebration of Chinese folk traditions.
• July 3, 2025: The festival opened on the Chilechuan grasslands in Hohhot, with 65 participating groups and nearly 400 performers.

The 42 national heritage items and 23 provincial projects give the program a broad base in recognized traditions. Their presence also connects the festival's artistic purpose with government efforts to safeguard cultural practices for future generations.

Why the Grasslands Matter to the Music

Hohhot and the surrounding grasslands have long been a cradle of Chinese folk music. Inner Mongolia's musical traditions are closely connected to its nomadic history, open landscapes and communities of different ethnic backgrounds.

Traditional Mongolian music includes the morin khuur, or horsehead fiddle; khoomei, known as throat singing; and urtyn duu, or long song. These instruments and vocal traditions evoke the grasslands and the resilience of the people who live there.

The Chilechuan setting gives those connections a visible place in the festival. The opening ceremony paired pastoral music with a landscape that is both scenic and culturally significant, allowing the surroundings to become part of the experience of listening.

For visitors unfamiliar with the region, the setting helps connect musical expression with the lives and histories behind it. The grasslands are more than scenery in this account of Inner Mongolia's music: they are part of the environment from which its songs and stories developed.

Anda Union Carries Old Stories Abroad

Anda Union, formed in Hohhot, shows how music rooted in the grasslands can reach listeners far from its place of origin. The group has performed in cities across the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere, bringing Inner Mongolian musical traditions to international audiences.

The band's mission is to rediscover and reinterpret old songs so that their melodies and stories are not lost over time. That work connects musical performance with the preservation of memories passed between generations.

Nars, Anda Union's lead musician, described the stories that shaped the group's members and the value they place on them:

We all grew up with legends of Genghis Khan, Mongol tribespeople and many other folk tales about love, brotherhood and courage. They are our wealth.

His explanation places inherited stories at the heart of the music. Love, brotherhood and courage give the songs themes that listeners elsewhere can understand, even when the traditions and places behind them are unfamiliar.

From Wei Wei to Folk Metal

Wei Wei, a singer of Zhuang nationality born in Hohhot, represents another connection between the city and Chinese music's international reach. Known for a deep, sonorous voice and distinctive interpretations of traditional songs, she has become a beloved figure in Chinese music.

Her career includes performances at major international events such as the Atlanta Olympic Games. Her example sits alongside the festival's broader mix of established artists and emerging talent, showing the range of careers associated with folk music and its influence.

Nine Treasures takes a different musical route. The folk metal band combines Mongolian instruments with modern rock, bringing traditional sounds into a heavier contemporary style. Bands including Nine Treasures and Liberation draw on Mongolian folk melodies and themes while introducing elements of metal and rock.

These approaches show how preservation and creative change can exist together. Anda Union's reinterpretation of old songs and the use of traditional instruments in contemporary bands help keep the music accessible to younger audiences in China and abroad. The songs retain connections to inherited culture while reaching listeners through different forms.

A Tourism Campaign Built Around Participation

Inner Mongolia's spring tourism campaign, titled Musical Tours in Inner Mongolia, includes 219 cultural and tourism events across six thematic categories. The folk song festival forms part of the broader effort to position the region as a destination for cultural tourism and tourism centered on nature.

The campaign includes concerts outdoors, heritage craft workshops and experiences that invite visitors to take part in local traditions. Horsehead fiddle making and Mongolian embroidery offer ways to encounter the skills behind the region's cultural life, alongside its music.

In Hulunbuir, visitors are encouraged to join herders in wool shearing. Along the Yellow River, dramas performed live portray ancestral rituals. Such activities aim to turn sightseeing into participation, giving travelers contact with traditions rather than only views of the places where they developed.

Spring blossoms, alpine valleys and unpolluted night skies provide both settings and inspiration for the cultural program. Music, heritage and nature are brought together in an approach that links the region's landscapes with the stories people tell about them.

What Heritage Protection Means Here

The festival's 42 national heritage items and 23 provincial projects sit within government initiatives intended to safeguard traditional arts for future generations. Intangible cultural heritage refers here to living practices and skills, including music, dance, crafts and storytelling, that communities inherit and continue to use.

These traditions form part of the identity of different ethnic groups. Keeping them alive involves people continuing to sing, play, make and tell stories, as well as passing those abilities to others. A festival gives such practices a public platform and brings audiences into contact with the people who carry them.

Inner Mongolia's combination of tourism and heritage reflects a broader Chinese effort to use intangible cultural heritage to encourage travel and community participation. At the folk song festival, authenticity and audience engagement connect that goal with the presentation of regional musical traditions.

For residents, the event offers a setting in which familiar traditions can be celebrated. For visitors, it provides an introduction to cultural practices they may not otherwise encounter. Both groups can hear how inherited music continues to express attachment to community and homeland.

Shared Values and the Spring Festival Connection

The Chinese Spring Festival's inclusion on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity provides a wider example of recognition for living traditions. Like the Spring Festival, the folk song gathering provides a platform for values such as harmony, prosperity and renewal to pass between generations and across cultures.

Ljiljana Stevic, director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Banja Luka, described the customs and values associated with the Spring Festival:

The festival is celebrated with diverse customs, including the preparation of traditional dishes, the hanging of red lanterns, and vibrant performances featuring lion and dragon dances. These practices, deeply rooted in history, reflect the values of harmony, prosperity and renewal.

Her description concerns the Spring Festival and helps explain how a celebration can carry shared values through food, decoration and performance. In Hohhot, songs and instruments provide the means of expressing cultural identity and bringing people together.

Festivals can also give communities a public occasion to take pride in their heritage. The folk song event connects that sense of belonging with performances drawn from many parts of China, placing different traditions alongside one another.

How the Gathering Compares With Naadam

Naadam offers another example of a major festival celebrating the nomadic culture and artistic heritage of the grasslands. The event lasts five days and features horse racing, wrestling and archery, traditionally known as the "three games of men."

Naadam places athletic skill and ancient military arts at the center of its program. The folk song festival concentrates on musical expression and oral traditions, the songs and stories passed from person to person. Both are described as celebrations of the resilience and creativity of grassland peoples and as ways to carry their stories to new generations.

Naadam and the folk song festival are also presented as sharing recognition on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list. Both serve as cultural gatherings with meaning for the region's residents, although their main forms of expression differ: sporting contests in one, voices and instruments in the other.

Music as a Form of Cultural Exchange

The Hohhot festival brings China's diverse folk traditions before local audiences, visitors and a growing international audience. Its role in cultural diplomacy lies in using music to encourage understanding and respect among ethnic groups and between China and the wider world.

International tours, collaborations and media attention help carry Inner Mongolia's music beyond the region. Anda Union's performances abroad and the wider reach of artists such as Wei Wei show how musicians can introduce audiences to traditions through individual careers as well as major festivals.

The gathering also presents Inner Mongolia, and China more broadly, as a place where inherited culture and new artistic work meet. Traditional songs, contemporary reinterpretations and performances in a grassland setting all contribute to that presentation.

As of July 4, no closing date was given. The event's central purpose is already visible in its opening: nearly 400 performers sharing musical traditions, supporting their transmission and giving audiences a chance to connect with the living culture of the grasslands.

Key Points

• The 2025 China Original Folk Song Festival opened on July 3 on the Chilechuan grasslands in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.
• Organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, it brings together 65 groups and nearly 400 performers.
• The program spans 42 national intangible cultural heritage items and 23 provincial heritage projects.
• The biennial festival began in 2019 and focuses on preserving and promoting Chinese folk music.
• Inner Mongolia's wider spring tourism campaign includes 219 cultural and tourism events across six categories.
• Artists including Anda Union, Wei Wei, Nine Treasures and Liberation illustrate different ways regional musical traditions reach contemporary and international audiences.
• The festival connects musical performance with heritage preservation, cultural participation and exchange.