Unmatched in eclecticism and scope in the Chinese festival world, the fifth installment of the Jue Music + Art Festival, which takes place in Beijing and Shanghai, will kick off from March 8.

Unlike Midi and Strawberry, big outdoor music fests that take place in Beijing’s outskirts, JUE, which means ‘to sense’ or ‘awaken’, is a two week melting pot of music, visual arts, performance, and literary events across multiple locations in the two cities. Also on the roster are workshops, a market selling original works by local artists and a photography competition.

Nevertheless, the main part of the festival is live music, and more names were added to the growing lineup of musicians yesterday, including songwriter and producer How to Dress Well (aka Tom Krell in his life as a PhD candidate). He’ll be playing on the festival’s opening night at 2Kolegas, one of Beijing’s favorite live houses.

Taking part in the music mix are Canadian musician Grimes, Australian folksy blues singer Jeff Lang, local indie band Sound Fragment and Marshall Allen, the octogenarian alto sax player at the helm of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Allen’s performance should encapsulate much of what this multimedia festival is about. Playing with Cinema Soloriens, a film and music project headed by James Harrar, this show promises to be visually and sonically memorable.

On the film side, JUE will be introducing Asian Cinema Week with locally-based film specialists Electric Shadows. Amongst the feature length and short films, they’ll be premiering new documentary “Mongolian Bling,” which follows local hip hop acts from Ulaanbaatar to locations across Mongolia, taking in this new music form and culture as well as the ancient traditions that are slowly dying out in the struggling democracy.

The festival’s organizers, the music events company Split Works, say that JUE draws inspiration from the likes of the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, where one of its co-founders, Archie Hamilton, grew up. With this in mind, Split Works have also taken on an advisory board of specialists in the realms of film, visual arts and literature, such as Ullens Center for Contemporary Arts (UCCA) director Phil Tinari. Many of the arts and literary events are yet to be announced, but last year, the literary component of the festival included a live “translation slam” of the band Hao Meimei’s lyrics, followed by a live musical performance.

Highlights on the program include Baiye (which translates as White Night, and is inspired by the large-scale 24 hour urban festivals of that name), which will also have its China premier as part of JUE, with pop up art “encounters”, workshops and even a silent disco being organized across 24 hours in 24 spaces.

“The festival has been steadily growing to include a broader and more diverse selection of events,” says Split Works co-founder Nathaniel Davis. “In the past, the festival functioned more as an umbrella, where we included  friends and partners in the art world who were already planning events during the festival. Now, we are working more closely with a smaller number of key collaborators and comrades-in-arms to create most of the events for JUE.”

The festival itself isn’t a big earner for the organizers, he adds, saying it is “a labor of love” independently financed by Split Works with in-kind support along the way.

“The festival is not a money-making venture,” he emphasizes, “but we do our best to cover costs year on year and as of 2012 more or less managed to do that via strong ticket sales.” That looks good for the future of JUE, which will hope to continue enriching China’s two biggest cities’ music and culture scenes in the years to come.