Thank you for giving us this very unique opportunity
and that grows out of our good friend, Wu Man, having, offering this chance to bring her here.
She came to America and her journey then over the last two and a half or so decades, has
been fascinating and sometimes I think unexpected. She worked with the likes of
Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass. She is one of the founding members of the Silk
Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma which she remains an active part of but one of the
interesting turns came just over a decade ago when she decided to begin
returning back to China and seeking out some of the rural regional folk music
traditions in China that had not been a part of her classical training and so
tonight's performance will include collaborations with people that she has
brought here from in this instance of rural Shaanxi province or sort of far Southeast
corner of Shaanxi just where the Yellow River bends and she's brought with her
folk musicians from that region who will give you a very sort of distinctive
- I think it hard to find, hard to as well maybe even endangered, a variety of
Chinese music. She has described that music as
China's own ancient rock and roll - that will be later. We're going to begin with
just Wu Man and her wonderful instrument - the pipa. Please join me in welcoming her.
I was born in Hangzhou which is near Shanghai - urban city, kind of, you know,
elegant and I trained in - my training background is in Beijing, in conservatory
so all the years I've been, you know, in the conservatory, sort of, prestigious place
but in some way I, although I play traditional music - this is the
instrument - but somehow isolated in in many ways so I really didn't know about
what is really folk music in China.
When I first time perceived them, watched their play, so real. It's just nothing
fake. Everything's real. They put their energy 100%. To me, because we
sometimes feel like we're sort of a polished staged musician concert music
but they're kind of, this is their life - that's the difference. So to me
it really moved me. I really, so I said okay I want to work
with them. I really wanted to learn. I really wanted to in that kind of
elements in my music.
The shadow puppet, to me, is always kind of like a dream. When I was little just fascinating by the shadow puppets.
Of course there are a lot of Southeast Asia and and you know Malaysia, Indonesia and
they all have shadow puppets but in China in particular in the northern part
of China. They have quite a few shadow puppets group existed. They're not in
Shaanxi but also in Gansu, in Shandong area but particular Huayin that area it's
to me it's because of the music attract me a lot, the Lao Jiang. It's so dramatic.
We wanted to share with not only American audience. We want to also remind
the Chinese as well. This is tradition. This is a part of over
thousand years old Chinese tradition and we don't want to forget about it
and hopefully after this tour we want to hope people, younger generation, will
carry on. This is such a cool, cool tradition. It is really rock and roll, come on.