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Thank you for giving us this very unique opportunity

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and that grows out of our good friend, Wu Man, having, offering this chance to bring her here.

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She came to America and her journey then over the
last two and a half or so decades, has

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been fascinating and sometimes I think
unexpected. She worked with the likes of

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Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass. She is
one of the founding members of the Silk

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Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma which she
remains an active part of but one of the

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interesting turns came just over a
decade ago when she decided to begin

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returning back to China and seeking out
some of the rural regional folk music

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traditions in China that had not been a
part of her classical training and so

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tonight's performance will include
collaborations with people that she has

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brought here from in this instance of
rural Shaanxi province or sort of far Southeast

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corner of Shaanxi just where the Yellow
River bends and she's brought with her

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folk musicians from that region who will
give you a very sort of distinctive

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- I think it hard to find, hard to as well
maybe even endangered, a variety of

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Chinese music. She has described that
music as

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China's own ancient rock and roll - that
will be later. We're going to begin with

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just Wu Man and her wonderful instrument - the pipa. Please join me in welcoming her.

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I was born in Hangzhou which is near
Shanghai - urban city, kind of, you know,

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elegant and I trained in - my training
background is in Beijing, in conservatory

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so all the years I've been, you know, in
the conservatory, sort of, prestigious place

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but in some way I, although I
play traditional music - this is the

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instrument - but somehow isolated in in
many ways so I really didn't know about

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what is really folk music in China.

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When I first time perceived them,
watched their play, so real. It's just nothing

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fake. Everything's real. They put
their energy 100%. To me, because we

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sometimes feel like we're sort of a
polished staged musician concert music

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but they're kind of, this is their
life - that's the difference. So to me

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it really moved me.
I really, so I said okay I want to work

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with them. I really wanted to learn. I
really wanted to in that kind of

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elements in my music.

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The shadow puppet, to me, is always kind of like a dream. When I was little just
fascinating by the shadow puppets.

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Of course there are a lot of Southeast Asia
and and you know Malaysia, Indonesia and

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they all have shadow puppets but in
China in particular in the northern part

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of China. They have quite a few shadow
puppets group existed. They're not in

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Shaanxi but also in Gansu, in Shandong
area but particular Huayin that area it's

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to me it's because of the music attract
me a lot, the Lao Jiang. It's so dramatic.

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We wanted to share with not only
American audience. We want to also remind

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the Chinese as well.
This is tradition. This is a part of over

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thousand years old Chinese tradition
and we don't want to forget about it

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and hopefully after this tour we want to
hope people, younger generation, will

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carry on. This is such a cool, cool
tradition. It is really rock and roll, come on.

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