Tan Fengyuan

Also known as Born Tan Wenxiang · Courtesy name Zhonglin

Tan Fengyuan, born Tan Wenxiang with the courtesy name Zhonglin, was a Beijing Mongol bannerman from a family of amateur bajiaogu singers and began learning from his father Baoliang at seven. At twenty-two he became a disciple of the bajiaogu artist Cheng Jiuzhai, taking a stage name in the feng generation, and at thirty-two he studied jingyun dagu with Liu Baoquan, recording pieces such as Nao Jiangzhou. From 1938 he sang danxian paizi qu almost exclusively and became famous in Beijing and Tianjin for forceful, richly flavoured singing, especially in difficult tunes such as Shiyun, Yingshu and Huangli Diao; his manner is known as the Tan school. His repertoire included Lu Shi Hui, Shuang Yao Hui, Shuimang Cao and Dayu Shajia. In 1965 his account of his craft was recorded by Jin Shoushen as The Performing Art of Danxian. He died in 1966.