Part and parcel of the 2016 Golden Melody Awards & Festival, the Golden Melody Showcases/Ticketed Concerts return with a vengeance this year. The already spectacular lineup of five themes and twelve performers includes Waa Wei, MURMURSHOW, JiaJia, Boxing, Monkey Pilot, Chalaw Passiwali, PASSEPIED, Matzka, PoeTek, Starr Chen, My Skin Against Your Skin, and Nick Chou. The concerts are set to take place at Taipei Xinyi District’s Neo Studio, with four show cases running each night beginning at seven sharp from June 22 through June 24. Tickets go on sale on the online ticket merchant ACCUPASS on May 18 at noon and end on June 21 at midnight. Tickets are limited. Music fans—don’t miss this opportunity to see your favorites! International guests and buyers attending the GMA are all invited to the concerts, while tickets are also available to the general public. The concerts are expected to showcase the talents to the international music markets, boosting the already lively domestic music industry. Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture hopes to establish Taiwan as Asia’s number one business matching center within the Mandopop music world. A total of twelve singers and music groups will take turns bringing their most innovative international sounds to Taiwan’s stage. In addition to singers such as Taiwan’s own Matzka who was nominated for this year’s Golden Melody Best Male Vocalist and PoeTek who was nominated for Best New Artist, the Japanese group PASSEPIED is also among the list of performers. The group was invited to join the special event as part of the recommendation by the TIMM, Tokyo International Music Market. This marks Taiwan’s first collaboration with a major international music festival, whereby select artists are exchanged between the two festivals. TIMM takes place in Tokyo each October. This year, an artist (or group) from Taiwan will be recommended to join the performances at TIMM. Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture hopes that the collaboration will bring the regional forces together to achieve greater international recognitions. The five member group PASSEPIED coalesced in 2009 around the keyboardist Narita Haneda, and is named from the final movement of French composer Claude Debussy’s “Suite bergamasque”—Passepied. Lead singer Natsuki Ogoda, the voice of the band, also designs PASSEPIED’s album covers, contributing to the band’s style on and off the stage. PASSEPIED’s boundary-defying musical philosophy and technique is finely mixed with the infectious sounds of music from the 1970s, all of which has led to their moniker as “new era impressionist.” This year’s Golden Melody Festival will take place at the Humble House Taipei from June 22-24. The three day run of events will include international panel discussions, keynote speeches, a GMA Talk, a biz matching center, exhibition (this year’s theme will be visual technology), speed meetings, pitching, and showcases/concerts. For more information about the Ticketed Concerts, please see GMA’s official site at: https://gma.tavis.tw/gm27/GMF/Showcase_en.asp.