Fine-tuning his musical prospects

"We've seen a diversity of musical styles and great original songs performed by these young bands coming from different parts of the country," Ren says. The company also organizes the Beijing Midi Music Festival, one of the oldest and largest events of its kind in China.

"It was the first time that Honghai'er entered the top 10 ranking of the competition. I am so proud of them," says 41-year-old Zhao, adding that the band has participated in the competition three times since it was founded in 2018. "Like my parents who used to worry about me, their parents also feel reluctant about their children playing in a band. The award is quite convincing, which also makes the members and their parents proud."

The band is led by 12-year-old lead singer and guitarist Bao Zimo. The other members are guitarist Hou Wenbo, bassist and guzheng (a traditional, zither-like stringed instrument) player Pei Shoupeng and drummer Wang Peng. They named the band Honghai'er because coincidentally, the members all wore red when they did their first rehearsal.

Since Xinjiang is home to different ethnic groups, with Zimo being of Hui ethnicity and the other members of the Han ethnic group, the band has absorbed folk music styles, and sings stories from their hometown Xinjiang.

One of their songs is called Song of Shule, which was inspired by a local folklore about Shule, an ancient city in Kashgar.

"One day, the children shared a movie they watched with me, which was director Zack Snyder's 300.They were impressed by the brave warriors," recalls Zhao. "I told them a story about Shule, which is about a battle led by a general named Geng Gong over 2,000 years ago. With a few hundred soldiers, the general fought against an outnumbering army to protect Shule city. In extremely severe conditions, such as harsh weather and a lack of food, they bravely fought and won the battle with only 13 people left.

"We wrote the song together and performed it for the first time during the competition," says Zhao.

The song won best original song when they competed in an event in Southwest China.

Vocalist Zimo started to learn to play the guitar with Zhao when he was 5.

"We wrote the song from the very first note together. Though we didn't win the competition, we were happy that our song was heard by so many people during the event."