Sauljaljui, a vocalist from the Paiwan-tribe village of Kapanan in Mudan Township, Pingtung, has a solid, powerful yet gentle voice. After focusing on heavy metal in her college years, she returned to her hometown and gradually changed her preferred style while working with the Hengchun Folk Music Group and MAQATI, music organizations near her home. Maintaining the structure of indigenous music, her work has a singular and immediate appeal with an integration of pop, folk, Latin, and world music.
In 2011, she entered the Taiwan Music Composition and Songwriting Contest (Indigenous Language Category) and surprised many by winning first prize with the song “Musical Rite of Passage.” So as not to get carried away with her sudden fame, she decided to go to Australia on a working holiday, and while wandering and doing street performances there, she wrote “Lament of Colored Cloth,” based on her longing for home and memories of what happened in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, a storm that ravaged Taiwan in 2009. The song won her another first prize in the same contest, this time in 2014.
Read moreIn 2016, she released her first solo album, Tracing the River of Life, which was nominated for prizes at the 28th Golden Melody Awards and 7th Golden Indie Music Awards. In 2019, she released her second album, Insides Revealed. In her work, she holds to the motto of “finding a path home through music.”
In addition to taking an active role in various kinds of performances both in Taiwan and abroad, observing life, and maintaining creative momentum, Sauljaljui frequently spends time contributing to her village. Over the past ten years living there, she has continually worked with local teens in organizing the Kapanan Culture and Music Festival (originally the MAQATI Music Festival) as a way to bring the energy of the village together and provide an exchange platform for local teens looking to get into the music sector. Besides helping to pass on the village culture, Sauljaljui is a regular speaker for the Hengchun Folk Music Group, which includes spending time talking with and playing the yueqin for elderly people in the area. She also teaches the guitar and yueqin at several local elementary schools after school to children from disadvantaged families. As a result, she is very familiar with the thoughts and feelings of people both old and young in her community.