Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man to perform in Charlotte on Oct. 10-11

by Susan Palmes-Dennis

World renowned US-based Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man is scheduled to hold a concert with the Charlotte Symphony at the Belk Theater in Oct. 10-11, said Virginia Brown, Charlotte Symphony communications manager.

Virginia Brown told Straight from the Carolinas that Wu Man would hold her first performance in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. “This promises to be an exciting performance,” she said. 

Wu Man would be at the Bechtler Museum on Tuesday, prior to the event. Some background provided by Brown sheds light on Wu Man, a leading ambassador of Chinese music to the world, to those unfamiliar with her work.

Wu Man was named as the 2008 US Artists Broad Fellow because of her efforts to promote the pipa, a Chinese lute-like instrument with a musical history going back to more than 2,000 years. 

Brown said Wu Man strives to promote the pipa through various musical styles in both solo and quarter works, concertos, operas, chamber, electronic and jazz music a well as in theater production, film, dance and collaborations with visual artists including calligraphers and painters.

Photo taken from carnegiehall.org

She has been trained in the Pudong School of pipa playing,one of the most prestigious classical styles of China. 

Wu Man is now recognized as an outstanding exponent of the traditional repertoire as well as a leading interpreter of contemporary pipa music by today’s most prominent composers such as Tan Dun, Philip Glass, the late Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Bright Sheng and Chen Yi among many others. 

Wu Man was born in Hangzhou,China, and studied with Lin Schicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin and Liu Dehai at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa. 

She was also accepted into the conservatory at age 13. Wu Man’s audition was covered by national newspapers and she was held as a child prodigy.  
  
During the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-220A.D.), instruments with long, straight-necks and round resonators with snake skin or wooden boards were played with a forward and backward plucking motion that sounded like ”pi” and ”Pa” to fanciful ears. 

Hence, all plucked musical instruments in ancient times were called pipa. Straight from the Carolinas (yours truly) was invited to attend the concert and so will post my review of the event afterwards. Stay tuned.

Photo taken from ojaifestival,org

(Susan Palmes-Dennis is a veteran journalist from Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, Northern Mindanao in the Philippines who works as a nanny in North Carolina. This page will serve as a venue for news and discussion on Filipino communities in the Carolinas.

Read her blogs on susanpalmesstraightfrom the Carolinas.com and at http://www.blogher.com/myprofile/spdennis54. These and other articles also appear at http://www.sunstar.com.ph/author/2582/susan-palmes-dennis.

You can also connect with her through her Pinterest account at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/41025046580074350/) and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Straight-from-the-Carolinas-/494156950678063)