Billboard Magazine and National Public Radio dip into the music of Beijing this week. The U.S. music industry magazine names China's capital one of "five unlikely cities spawning exciting new sounds" and singles out indie label Modern Sky for attention. It also claims that soon the city will be a regular stop on the world tour circuit: "'At the moment it's uncharted territory,' says Maximo Park manager Colin Schaverien. 'But in five years it will be a natural routing point stop-off on the way to, or back from, Japan.'"

Over at NPR, the always-terrific China reprter Louisa Lim profiles a British man who dropped his whole life at age 32 to study Beijing opera, studying with Chinese students two decades his junior. Anyone who knows about the rigorous physical and artistic training that it takes to perform Beijing opera will be surprised by the story of Ghaffar Pourazar, who hopes to help save what may be a dying art.

(By the way, for another good NPR piece, check out Anthony Kuhn's "Lost Sounds of Old Beijing" from May 2006.)