Music at the journey's end

While studying in Germany in her early 20s, Shi attended music festivals in small villages far from major cities. Reaching them often required long train rides, bus transfers or winding mountain roads. Yet, that remoteness was precisely what made them memorable.

People stayed for days. Musicians wandered into cafes after performances. Audiences lingered long after the applause had faded.

"After one especially nerve-racking concert, I went into a restaurant," recalls Shi, 33, a graduate of Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media and Detmold University of Music who now teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

"An elderly man came over simply to tell me how much he had enjoyed the performance and to thank me. That intimacy was something I had never experienced before."

Music was not confined to the concert hall. It flowed naturally into conversations over dinner, chance encounters in the village and quiet walks through the surrounding countryside. That feeling stayed with her.

"I knew even then that one day I wanted to create a music festival like that," she says.

Born in Hebei province, Shi found herself driving through Zhangjiakou during a holiday last summer, captivated by the mountains. A subsequent visit to Jinshanling convinced her she had found the ideal setting.

"The weather was cool even in midsummer. We spent two days simply driving around," she recalls.

More importantly, the valley possessed something increasingly rare: genuine seclusion.

Jinshanling lies at the end of the road rather than along the way. Visitors do not simply pass through.

"You can stay there," Shi says. "You can temporarily forget city life."

That sense of retreat echoes the European festivals she admired, where the journey itself became part of the experience, bringing together people who had consciously chosen to make the trip — for the music and for one another.

The setting also transforms the act of listening.