Bella Yao (姚贝娜)
Yao Beina (26 September 1981 – 16 January 2015), also known as Bella Yao, was a Chinese singer. She was known as the singer of the theme songs of Empresses in the Palace, Painted Skin: The Resurrection and Back to 1942. She also sang the pop version of Let It Go in Mandarin Chinese in the Disney CGI film, Frozen for the Mandarin Chinese dub when the film was released in China. She competed in the The Voice of China television reality show. Source
Featured Songs
一生花 The Life of A Flower
画情 Painting Out (Our) Feelings
御龙吟 The Imperial Dragon’s Cry
日月凌空 The Shadow of Empress Wu
Other Songs
又忆江南 Again Remembering Jiangnan
孔雀 Peacock
如果我们没有遇见 If We Never Met
心火 Flaming Heart
梦里开的花 The Flower That Blossoms in a Dream
莲 Lotus
依爱 Still Love (You)
睡着了的云 The Cloud that Fell Asleep
只因为爱 Only For Love
可以不可以 Can I Love You Like This
Wrapup
I decided to feature her this week as a special request, due to the nature of her recent passing. I was not familiar with her work until I received the request, and decided to use the writeup as a way to summarize her story.
If you didn’t notice, her bio section says that she lived from September 26, 1981 to January 16, 2015. Bella died from breast cancer very recently. She was first diagnosed in 2011 at 30 years old. She went through treatment and continued on with her career over the next couple of years. Earlier this month her condition worsened and she was rushed to the hospital. On January 9th, Bella signed an agreement to donate her corneas in the event that she passed. The cancer had spread to her brain and lungs. Wanting her to be able to leave in peace, her father requested that she’d be taken off life support. She died at the age of 33 and a memorial service was held on January 20th.
A 23 year old man from Chengdu successfully received a cornea transplant thanks to Bella’s donation. Before his operation he stated, “As a recipient, I want to stand up and give positive energy to other people. I was shocked and touched. I just want to say thank you to Yao and her parents”. His mother was so touched that she has agreed to donate both of her corneas after death as well.
The last post she made on her Weibo account was made at the end of November and said “I have been staying in bed for a month. I feel so oppressed, and I want to sing. Hope I can get well soon and smile a big smile. Don’t worry fans, I can get well, and I will be fine.”
RIP
[spoiler]
I normally use this section to talk about what I think of the artist’s music but I didn’t think it would be appropriate here, so I will briefly mention it here under spoilers. As I stated above, I didn’t know who she was and had never heard her music before this request. I didn’t get the chance to listen to everything but, I was able to get through a good amount of her discography. She has a great voice and some really good songs. Her music can be a little boring at times, and can be hit or miss, but were generally pretty good overall. I will definitely continue to listen to more of her music after this.
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