Q&A with Sa Dingding

Sa Dingding knew she wanted to be a singer at the age of four, but it took her over a decade to find and perfect her unique singing voice and language.

The 26-year-old Chinese-Mongolian singer won the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for the Asia-Pacific region with her debut album "Alive" last year. Since then she has performed all over the world.

She recently opened for the 2009 Shanghai World Music Festival, winning praise from fellow musicians along the way.

"She is one of the few musicians who found a way to uniquely express her own thoughts," said He Xuntian, an acclaimed music producer in China.

Shanghai Star Weekend caught up with Sa and quizzed her on the finer points of multi-lingual crooning.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a singer?

A: Since I was four. I started to compose at the age of 10. I grew up winning people's praise for my musical talent, but at 16 I realized that all my songs were in fact ideas borrowed from other people. I was not satisfied, and I was determined to find my own voice.

Q: You put together a fine album of electronic music under the name Zhou Peng a few years back. Why did you change your name to Sa Dingding when you worked on your debut song album?

A: However good I may have been with electronic music, I was using elements of Western music. Musicians all over the world use the same materials. I wanted to steer my way on to the less-traveled road and find my own voice, and as such I took my grandma's Mongolian family name, then added my childhood name to create my new identity.