Wu Man

Remember the Pipa soloist in the Year of China Concert?  Wu Man is coming out with her new CD, called “Immeasurable Light”.  According to the  New York Times article, her new CD includes ancient Asian traditional melodies (from the Tang Dynasty), which were notated by a university professor (ethnomusicologist) from ancient tablatures.  Wu Man takes these melodies, which weren’t notated by pitch but rather fingering, and adds her own compositions to it.  The Kronos Quartet is a frequent collaborator with Wu Man, and they are in “Immeasurable Light” as well.  And kind of in reference to Susan’s post about guitar slapping, Wu Man uses her pipa in various ways to imitate sounds of a gong, cymbal, and wood block.  She also sings in this album.
Wu Man was the first person to earn a Master’s in pipa from the Central Conservatory in Music of China.  She made her way up from Chinatown to Carnegie Hall after arriving in New York without speaking a word of English.  That is very admirable, and I think it’s really cool that she was able to go so far with pipa, which isn’t a traditional western instrument.  The article mentions that she has played bluegrass and jazz too, which I found interesting.  Another interesting thing is that in addition to Bright Sheng, Evan Ziporyn, the composer whose pieces we heard at Le Poisson Rouge, has also composed a song for Wu Man.