The night before.
New Year's Eve.
At Lin Tian's home, Lin Tian and Gan Yan Yu received messages from the organizers at the same time.
Only then did they learn.
The Qingjiang Province Music Association had officially announced the eight contestants advancing to the Parrot Qin Cup semifinals today.
They were:
Group A: Bai Xi, Lou Yitong, Yang Weize, and Zhu Ya.
Group B: Christina Nana Li, Yun Qiuqiu, Mao Junfeng, and Gan Yan Yu.
The eight contestants would battle it out on the semifinal stage.
In the end, the highest-scoring contestant from Group A and the highest-scoring contestant from Group B would enter the finals, where they would compete for the Parrot Qin Cup championship and represent Qingjiang Province in the Dragon Qin Cup in the second half of the year.
"What a brutal format."
Lin Tian could not help saying,
"Two hundred and sixty contestants, eight left for the semifinals, then only two for the finals."
Although Lin Tian did not understand music competitions, he had truly never seen one that ended with only two people remaining.
That was way too absurd.
They were competing in cello performance, not fighting each other with cellos until whoever died got carried away.
This sort of setup was genuinely rare in music competitions.
They were clearly competing for the championship based on scores, yet it ended up as a one-on-one match.
"This format was changed in recent years to follow international standards. It was designed to appeal to younger audiences by imitating sports competitions."
Gan Yan Yu explained.
"That really is pretty competitive."
Now Lin Tian understood.
Comparing it with other competitions made it obvious.
Why did music competitions receive so little attention from young people?
Because they lacked "confrontation" and "competitiveness."
Not everyone could understand an obscure, difficult cello piece.