11/10 Shanghai Symphony Orchestra

I spent my childhood in Shanghai, so when I heard that the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall, I looked forward to welcoming an “old friend” from my home city. The program, led by conductor Long Yu, consisted of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Lang Lang as soloist, and Chen Qigang’s 2001 composition Iris dévoilée.

Chen Qigang’s Iris dévoilée portrays the various traits, facets, and moods of Woman as an archetype. Written for full orchestra, it combines both western and eastern musical elements using a soprano, a Peking Opera soprano, and traditional Chinese instruments. The work is distinctive in its exploration of light coloration, silken textures, suspended harmonies, and delicate, melodious threads. Particularly striking was a moment during which the two sopranos’ sustained notes blended together in disparate, contrasting vocal tones. Those few seconds were quite special. Overall, it was very satisfying to hear how the quality of playing by this fine orchestra has developed over the years.

11/10 Shanghai Symphony Orchestra

View a slide show from the November 10, 2009, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra concert.

Posted by Carnegie Hall

11/9 New Juilliard Ensemble @ Alice Tully Hall

For my money, the mid-size chamber ensemble is the best and most versatile platform for exhibiting works by modern Chinese composers. It’s large enough to accommodate a healthy roster of Western and Chinese instruments, with lots of places to go in terms of color and volume. But still small enough to keep things loose and improvisatory in the style of traditional Chinese music, most of which had no notation and was played on instruments that are essentially folk handicrafts.

Last night’s Alice Tully show by the New Juilliard Ensemble exhibited six works by six modern Chinese composers: five of mid-1950s vintage, and one born in 1988. The latter was Li Shaosheng, whose Skyline on the Moon was a world premiere composed especially for the ensemble; the rest were well-established composers representing Beijing, Shanghai, and China’s interior. All the pieces shared in common a chamber-orchestra format, and a rough similarity in style that ranged between a carefree Bartók, a distracted Stravinsky, Copland-Bernstein, and a little rock n’ roll. But the diversity within these broad parameters was impressive and seductive—like, at the risk of veering into cliché, China herself. In Guo Wenjing’s Concertino, the solo cello was the star; in Zhu Jian’er’s symphony, the extremely versatile dizi flute. Rumbles from the bass drum opened and closed young Li’s well-received and highly scenic piece, while his teacher Ye Xiaogang used strings and angular rhythms to do justice to the title of his Nine Horses. The rock- and writing-inclined Liu Sola offered one of her rare returns to classical music with In-Corporeal I (pop beats, drumset, and all), and Jia Daqun’s densely colorful Three Images from Ink and Wash Painting tried with good success to adapt to music styles of Chinese calligraphy.

The program’s strongly visual theme didn’t go amiss, either: In a time when much of modern music can feel aggressively antisocial and abstract, sometimes it’s nice to sit back with fellow concertgoers and take in the views.

Posted by Nick Frisch, 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow researching classical music developments in China

11/8 The Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble @ The Joyce Theater

The experience of seeing the Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble at the Joyce Theater on Sunday evening was like peering through a time portal into the China of nearly 2,000 years ago.

The work presented on Sunday, The Feast of Han Xizai, was inspired by a painting of the same name dating from the Tang dynasty and displayed in the National Museum of Beijing. The famous painting depicts many contemporary details about art, fashion, music, and dance, all of which played a part of aristocratic life during the Tang dynasty.

The Feast of Han Xizai is presented as a series of six scenes. The work’s plot concerns an incident at a party involving a guest and a concubine. The incident arouses the anger of Han Xizai, the host of the party and a powerful statesman. Some of the scenes contain no plot development, but demonstrate intricate dance ensembles, solo instrumental and vocal performances, or experiences such as flower arranging or an exquisite tea ceremony.

11/7 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Last night, during the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s performance,
there was a playful silkworm weaving a set of “threads” in my imagination. It was making wonderful connections in my thoughts between Angel Lam’s Awakening from a Disappearing Garden, Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, and (surprisingly) my own distant past in China.

Angel Lam’s Awakening from a Disappearing Garden is a cello concerto with narration that depicts a dream sequence occurring between 1953 and 2007. The sequence revolves around the narrator’s character, Lao Wu (Number Five). Wearing a long, white, Chinese-style dress, the narrator (composer Angel Lam), could have been the character she was describing in the 1953 episode. Yo-Yo Ma’s cello sonorities captured the evocative mood, transporting me to remote worlds with a backdrop of musical references to the present (textured string sonorities) and the past (traditional Chinese opera gongs and temple bells).

The second work of the evening, Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, is based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the fanciful story of a Chinese emperor and a mythical nightingale, whose power restores life to the dying Emperor. In this concert version of Stravinsky’s opera, a few small props and the singer’s imaginative choreography caused my mind’s eye to superimpose the missing details traditionally provided by stage settings.

Now, back to the little silkworm that was weaving connections to my own experiences in China:

While listening to Lam’s words about the woman in the 1950s, who is then transported to 2007, my own deep memories began to surface. When I was a little girl in the 1960s, I performed on the piano for Mao Zedong. It was a cloudy day at China’s Youth Palace in Shanghai, and being so young, I certainly didn’t understand the significance of having such an audience! In Stravinsky’s opera, the nightingale makes the Emperor unexpectedly feel something very tender with its song. Perhaps I was not unlike the nightingale.

Remembering a recent visit to China, I also feel connected to Lam’s character, Number Five, in her more current, modern world. Indeed, living in the fast-paced world of business and technology, which I experience here every day, is in complete contrast with my former life in Shanghai. Looking back now, that childhood memory of playing for Mao seems like a dream. But it really did happen. In a brief instant, the past seems like the present.

Angel Lam’s and Stravinsky’s works were all about distant dreams and myths, but last night they were also and evocation of at least one reality—my own.

Posted by Yee Ping Wu, co-founder of Knoa Software and a graduate of The Juilliard School

11/7 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

View a slide show from the November 7, 2009, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert.

Posted by Carnegie Hall

11/6 The Evolving Cultural Identity of Chinese American Artists @ Museum of Chinese in America

Even today, said the panelists, “Do you speak English?” is a question sometimes directed at Americans who appear phenotypically Asian. But not last night: With a loquacious and erudite command of English that outstripped their Chinese, three accomplished Chinese Americans tackled the thorny issue of identity.

Even émigré Bright Sheng, born and raised in China, confessed: “After so long in America, I found my Chinese was slipping and English getting better. For a time, I couldn’t speak either language well.” Playwright David Henry Hwang and writer Jeff Yang, both American-born, seemed to relish their American-ness. “For so long, we were trying to prove that we were more American than Chinese,” said Yang. Hwang chimed in: “but now that China is rising, we want to identify more with that.”

The setting couldn’t have been more fitting for this wide-ranging discussion of Chinese American identity: the brand-new Centre Street. home of the Museum of Chinese in America. Facing a diverse crowd, the three mused on how much things have changed. “In the schoolyard, “Chinese’ used to be a bad thing,” recalled Yang. “‘Chinese American’ wasn’t a well-developed idea.” “But now, they are studying us in college courses!” said Hwang with more than a hint of amazement. “In the past 30 years,” he continued, “the changes have been huge. Who could have imagined that a Chinese American writer [Amy Tan] would be a household name?”

Audience questions focused on the notion of Asian versus Chinese American, the possibility of future rivalry with China, and the topic—still taboo in conservative strains of Chinese culture—of mental disability. One gentleman whose look and manner put him one “fugghedaboudit” away from a Chinese Tony Soprano, said what many were thinking: “Talk to me over the phone, you’d never know I looked Chinese.”

Posted by Nick Frisch, 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow researching classical music developments in China

11/5 Traditional Chinese Music in the 21st Century @ China Institute

Cultural agnosticism was the watchword of the evening as Huang Ruo and Min Xiao-Fen faced a full room at China Institute last night. Fresh off Tuesday’s CD release party at (Le) Poisson Rouge, they explained through words and music how culture in China—a country where tradition weighs more heavily than in most places in the world—adapts to the 21st century in the hands of younger artists. Composer Huang spoke and sang, and explained how he learned much about the diversity within China before going abroad and learning about the world outside. “At Oberlin, I could take music, but also philosophy, computer science; it was great.” Pipa virtuoso Min, who spoke during the conversation’s second half, was no less engaged: She grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when political and cultural orthodoxy was a matter of life and death. The crowd hung on every word as she retold her journey from there to her present-day role as the world’s premiere pipa-jazz crossover artist. Besides Huang’s singing, the audience was treated to audio recordings, Four Fragments for Solo Violin (played by Judy Tang from Huang's FIRE ensemble), and Min’s memorable mash-up of Ellington’s “Satin Doll” and the classic “Night Shanghai.” The finale: Written on the Wind, Huang’s piece for pipa accompanied by a calligraphy-inflected abstract art video. Min sang, but in no recognizable words: “I don’t know German or French,” said Huang, “and I kept going to the opera and relying on the surtitles. Then, I just turned off the surtitles, and tried to guess what the meaning was from the context, the emotion. My guesses were pretty good! So for this piece, I made up a language.” For those of us often left straining to understand the meaning in cross-cultural contexts, a nonsense tongue was the ultimate equalizer.
Posted by Nick Frisch, 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow researching classical music developments in China

11/4 Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra

The gentleman standing in the refreshments line at intermission, pontificating loudly à la “Annie Hall," may stand corrected. The Stravinsky was not a richly compelling and daringly visionary break from the composer's canon that is unlike any other Stravinsky piece you've ever heard. In fact, the material in Chant du rossignol predates his most famous works. Moreover, clearly audible within is an early sketchpad for many of his later ballets, notwithstanding the shine and dazzle of unusual, "Oriental"-sounding tonalities.

What was somewhat novel was the juxtaposition: sandwiching two modern Chinese pieces between two works of chinoiserie. Chant du rossignol and Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin Suite both hail from an era when the West's limited understanding of Chinese music came through interpretation by Western masters. Even those composers who made some use of actual Chinese tunes and scales—like the famous Turandot theme based on the traditional "Jasmine Flower" melody—still ended up with Chinese caricatures embedded in often-great works of music.

How things have changed: Last night's other pieces were from Chinese masters, stars from China's first generation of modern composers to have ample life experience at home and in the West. Both pieces set an unusual solo instrument against rich orchestral textures, and both had tersely poetic Chinese names belied by their English titles: Bright Sheng's Colors of Crimson condenses down to the color-word Jiàng, while the grand-sounding Water Concerto, by Tan Dun, is two syllables, Shuĭyuè, "water music." The solos, both performed by Colin Currie, were likewise pure and simple but deeply felt. For Tan's piece twanging, splashing, bubbling water; for Sheng's, a marimba that floated over the orchestra parts.

Bright Sheng and Tan Dun looked on from the audience as David Robertson conducted the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Each approached the stage for bows after their pieces, and each was intercepted by a beaming Robertson who dashed down to administer hugs before they could even get up the parquet stairs. It was just as well that Bartók and Stravinsky couldn't make it last night; the old masters were good, but their Chinese counterparts stole the show.

View a slide show from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall on November 4, 2009.

Posted by Nick Frisch, 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow researching classical music developments in China

11/4 - 8 The Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble @ The Joyce Theater

View a slide show from the dress rehearsal of The Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble’s production of “The Feast of the Han Xizai.” Performances take place at The Joyce Theater, from November 4 – 8, 2009.

Posted by Carnegie Hall

10/30 Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra

View a slide show from the October 30 performance by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.

Posted by Carnegie Hall

11/2 China Art(s) Today @ Asia Society

China today is blossoming with torrents of energy in many artistic areas, which the world now has the opportunity to see, hear, and touch. On Monday evening, two representatives of China's emerging artistic growth—avant-garde artist Wenda Gu and composer and conductor Tan Dun—appeared at the Asia Society as part of a panel moderated by Melissa Chiu, Director of the Asia Society Museum. Some brief film excerpts were presented by both artists.

During one of the excerpts, Tan Dun commented that 1+1=1, a reference to themes of young and old, past and present, and so on. Tan Dun presented this conundrum—with a sense of playfulness, I thought—as a way of expressing an underlying artistic principle that seems to capture an elusive artful essence. Both Tan Dun and Mr. Gu represent, in a sense, the idea of two separate entities or cultures unifying by striving to achieve or create a new sort of "oneness."

This theme is especially relevant, as many of Wenda Gu's projects involve efforts to construct massive structures made entirely of human hair—a common symbol unifying people of all cultures. Tan Dun's nurturing inspiration is water, another universal symbol. In Tan's works, water is often used as an instrument that accompanies other parts of the orchestra. It strikes me that both artists have a strong affinity with nature and universal symbols that emanate from a period during which China was still isolated from other cultures—which is also the China that I knew. Then, unlike today, there was little material means, food, or technology; people had to rely solely on their ingenuity and resourcefulness to survive. Listening intently to these artists describing their work and inferred struggles, expressed with such fundamental symbols—hair and water—I discovered that their music and art also resonated with something from my own memory, because everything was all very simple and bare. I never could have imagined or believed then that such raw elements could be magically transformed into art forms that could touch so many people around the world.

View a slide show from the Panel Discussion: CHINA ART(S) TODAY event at Asia Society on November 2, 2009.

Posted by Yee Ping Wu, co-founder of Knoa Software and a graduate of The Juilliard School

11/2 Neighborhood Concert: Haochen Zhang @ Flushing Town Hall

Stumbling off a flight from Hong Kong, your correspondent was hoping to make a discreet entrance to the Flushing Town Hall for Haochen Zhang's recital. No such luck: the flight may have been early, but this conspicuously non-Chinese, luggage-schlepping blogger still faced a huge, bemused crowd on arrival. Lined up all the way down the hall and around the corner, the overwhelmingly Chinese turnout had waited for an hour already and would wait an hour more.

Their enthusiasm spilled into Zhang's performance of 24 Chopin Preludes, Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, and Liszt's Rhapsodie espagnole. In this Chinese immigrant enclave, the packed hall lent the show more of a Peking Opera feel (chatting, kids running up the aisles, occasional cell phone bleeps, overzealous clapping) than there was at Zhang's performance in the Chinese capital two weeks ago. During the Chopin, Zhang almost had to fight off the applause during each pause, keeping his hands dramatically raised to signal that no, the piece was not over yet, before launching into the subsequent prelude. As a symbol of young, spectacular success, they loved him; by the second half, everyone had settled down to really listen to the music, too.

Maybe it wasn't just the venue's location; the recent injury of Taiwanese pitcher-hero Chien-Ming Wang has kept him off the Yankees' lineup and thus out of the World Series, making decisions on the evening's entertainment that much easier for locals. Whatever the reason, non–East Asians were barely in evidence. English-language announcements from Carnegie staff were translated into Mandarin and Cantonese, and one got the feeling that many in the crowd were recent transplants grateful for the interpreter. But no English—or Chinese, or any other language—was needed to appreciate Zhang's performance, which by the end had a restless crowd fully at attention.

Posted by Nick Frisch, 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow researching classical music developments in China

10/30 Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra

It is rare to have an ensemble of Chinese instruments perform in the Western format of an orchestra. Never before had I ever experienced such a combination of sounds, even though I grew up in Shanghai, China.

Both Western and Chinese instruments do have elements in common, namely wood, metal, and string, but they are different in many ways. One sees many unfamiliar uses of these common materials, and one sees the use in Chinese instruments of such materials as gourds, hide, and stone, not found in Western ensembles, that produce distinct textures new to Western ears. Also, there are numerous string instruments configured very differently with different shaped sound chambers that produce similar but uniquely different sound characteristics.

The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra filled the hall with tremendous energy and gave the audience an extraordinary combination of layered, colorful sounds. Although the means was unfamiliar to most, the use of familiar musical forms and sonorous textures helped to bridge cultural borders and to make otherwise foreign musical sounds completely accessible to many listeners.

The principal conductor of the orchestra, Yan Huichang, led four major works: Law Wing-Fai's Flowing Phantasm, Guo Wenjing's Three Melodies of West Yunnan, Zhao Jiping's Zhuang Zhou's Dream, and Cheng Dazhao's The Yellow River Capriccio.

As I learned in China, the Yellow River is known as "the cradle of Chinese civilization" and has always been a great symbol of China's strength. The Capriccio, which celebrates the rich life along the Yellow River, is characterized by a unique climax that the audience participates in. When seating prior to the concert, we were most surprised to find a small Chinese hand drum placed on our seats. Just before the performance of the Capriccio, we were all given an impromptu lesson on their use. I was impressed by how quickly an entire audience responded to cues from Maestro Yan, not only to play the drum but also to sing. This certainly wasn't a typical Carnegie Hall experience! The result during the performance was a boisterous ending that included dialogue between the audience and the on-stage drum ensemble. Everyone left with a wonderful sense of energy.

So as the evening concluded, I found myself wondering: As a listener absorbed in the reflections of all this rich and new (to me) sound, I asked, is there some other essence of the Chinese character embodied in the music we heard besides the simple fact that it was played on (almost) purely Chinese instruments?

As I was leaving Carnegie Hall with good friends, pondering this question, suddenly the idea popped into my head. Yes. There was a "yin and yang" in the music that was more present than I had realized at first. It was about many contrasts and new textures combined with familiar musical form and metaphors that had communicated to me. But even more so, there was something from my own present, living in America, which looked forward to the future and combined with my distant past—and even with the past before that back to "classical" China—which had spoken to me this evening with such joy and vibrancy.

Posted by Yee Ping Wu, co-founder of Knoa Software and a graduate of The Juilliard School

10/29 Neighborhood Concert: Chinese Instrument Workshop @ University Settlement Houston Street Center

My grandfather, who came to America at the age of 12 from mainland China near Hong Kong, once said that he'd done everything a Chinese man could do in this country—manage a restaurant, own a laundromat, be an actor (by which he meant that he'd been in a Beijing Opera troupe in New York). When he died, I inherited his erhu, which I've since sort of learned to play despite a tear in the python-skin head. Obviously, over the last century, the opportunities available to Chinese in this country (visiting or native), have greatly expanded, and so have the uses of the erhu.

The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is a bit of a hybrid. The group employs traditional Chinese instruments in a configuration modeled after a Western orchestra, using variants on the erhu in sizes analogous to the Western string family, all with heads made of a synthetic instead of traditional python skin—biodegradable and ecologically sound, these instruments hold their tune during travel, not to mention a resistance to the sort of damage that my own instrument suffered!

The individual instruments played short demonstrations, including a lively rock-star turn by the pipa (plucked lute) player playing Ambush from Ten Sides, which resident conductor Chew Hee-chiat told us we might recognize from any number of Kung Fu movies. Also striking was the wind section's rendition of 100 Birds Calling to the Phoenix, which featured a circular-breathing clinic by the suona (a double-reed with a large bell) player as well as some inventive bird-calling by both suona and dizi (bamboo flute).

The traditional works are essentially heterophonous, which is to say that the instruments all play more or less the same melody, although individual players may add their own ornaments (a concept more or less foreign in Western classical music, although familiar in a typical Gospel choir).

A few audience members were invited to try their hand at the zheng (the plucked zither, memorably employed in fight sequences in Kung Fu Hustle and Hero), including a young man from PS 184M, named Kevin, who trotted down the aisle with both hands raised—a la Rocky—to the applause of his classmates. The event closed with a spirited rendition of Oh Susannah, performed first in a neo-Chinese style—the melody alternating between instruments with a bass line added—and then in a sort of Dixie-land breakdown with the suona player doing his best imitation of a bebop saxophone.

Posted by Wesley Chinn, a freelance singer, instrumentalist, and conductor; and general manager of Opera Omnia.

10/28 Juilliard Orchestra

Wednesday night’s concert, featuring Michael Tilson Thomas, the Juilliard Orchestra, pianist Lang Lang, and singers Anne Sofie von Otter and Gregory Kunde, clearly illustrated the multitude of ways that composers, like Lou Harrison and Gustav Mahler, have incorporated Asian influences into the Western classical idiom.

Harrison had the opportunity, through travel and recordings, to study Asian music; the opening of his “The Family of the Court” evokes the Far East in a way that Mahler might not have recognized. Perhaps the most striking timbre is the assortment of Asian instruments that Harrison employs in a grand opening that instantly transports the listener.

In Das Lied von der Erde, when Mahler has the oboe play a pentatonic melody in “Von der Jugend,” it sounds Asian because the instrument itself can evoke a Far Eastern tone. When the brass instruments repeat the figure moments later, however, the result sounds much more Western.

A similar phenomenon was apparent in Lang Lang’s solo piano set. He Luting elegantly creates counterpoint out of a Chinese-sounding melody, whereas Lü Wenching uses chords under his melody; in both cases, Lang Lang’s expressive playing created a tonal tableau that sounded distinctly Chinese. Sun Yiqiang’s “Dance of Spring” on the other hand, uses a rocking accompaniment under a swirling melody that could easily be mistaken as the work of a Western composer.

Chen Qigang’s elegant Er Huang for piano and orchestra, meanwhile, combined many of these elements to create a work that was both distinctly Chinese and also clearly within the Western classical tradition. It appeared to me that the members of the Juilliard Orchestra certainly appreciated the opportunity to be in such a grand hall taking part in this East meets West mash-up.

Posted by Wesley Chinn, a freelance singer, instrumentalist, and conductor; and general manager of Opera Omnia.

10/28 Neighborhood Concert: Chinese Instrument Workshop @ Flushing Town Hall

View a slide show from the October 28, 2009, Neighborhood Concert: Chinese Instrument Workshop at Flushing Town Hall, featuring members of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.

Posted by Carnegie Hall

10/26 Ensemble ACJW @ Weill Recital Hall and Tan Dun w/ the Juilliard Orchestra @ Alice Tully Hall

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson on Saturday, but here I was again. Who in their right mind would schedule two programs of contemporary Chinese music on the same night in different venues? Who in their right mind would try to go to both? At least this time I didn’t have to travel on the subway.

Even with Saturday’s preview from the Ensemble ACJW’s Neighborhood Concert at Flushing Town Hall, I was unprepared for the sheer force of hearing those same pieces in the acoustics of Weill Recital Hall. Perhaps it was the presence of the composer in the hall, but Chen Qigang’s Instants d’un opera de Pékin spun off into another world entirely. Chen Yi’s Qi continued that effect, having emerged glistening from the darkness—literally, the house and stage lights having been turned off for atmosphere. Bright Sheng, who was also in attendance, added considerable focus to his Third String Quartet with his brief introduction of the piece as his personal tribute to Bartók (a composer he explored at length some 10 years ago in his essay “Bartók, the Chinese Composer”).

Then came intermission and I had to dash, which meant that I again missed Guo Wenjing’s Parade and Zhou Long’s Taigu Rhyme. At least there’s YouTube for Parade, and the Beijing New Music Ensemble’s recording of Taigu Rhyme on Naxos. [Note to self: buy Guo and Zhou a beer and apologize.]

Over at Alice Tully Hall, the scene was a madhouse. Tickets had been hard to come by for days, and the line for returns had stretched through the lobby earlier in the evening. I got to Tully at the end of Secret Land, Tan Dun’s piece for 12 cellos, and I can report that the lobby screen and speaker system for latecomers is one of the best in town.

After intermission, Tan briefly introduced his Violin Concerto, The Love, as three stages of romantic life. It was certainly three stages (at least) of the composer’s life, ending with a large stretch of his 1994 mini-concerto Out of Peking Opera, with a lush reworking of material from his 2000 Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack in the middle, and beginning with a new and aggressive percussion opening that showed off the Juilliard Orchestra to its fullest. This was some of the most energetic orchestral playing I’ve heard in a while, filled with a palpable sense of excitement and discovery.

Posted by Ken Smith

10/25 Chinese Teahouse @ The Asia Society

The eighth floor of the Asia Society, generally used for lectures and symposiums, was billed as a “teahouse” last Sunday, both figuratively for its informal atmosphere and literally for the beverages and sweets being served in the back. There was still a hint of symposium, though, in the way that both the music and the qin made their way through the evening.

In these surroundings, much more intimate than the more formal concert setting at Zankel Hall, Wu Man was better able to serve as a direct conduit between the musicians and the audience—that is, until introducing her former conservatory roommate, qin player Zhao Jiachen, when neither Ms. Wu nor Ms. Zhao could render the title of the qin piece in English.

“It’s called Geese Descending on the Sandy Bank,” said Mingmei Yip, a fellow qin player (and Carnegie Hall festival participant) who was sitting in the second row. Looking around, I could see a number of people in the room who had also been to Ms. Yip’s lecture-demonstration at the China Institute last Thursday and now had a completely new frame of reference for China’s most iconic instrument.

Zhao and Yip, it became obvious, come from completely different traditions—the former emphasizing rhythm and musical line, the latter focusing on timbral subtleties. It’s the difference between conservatory and private gatherings, between tablature as score to perform or literature to read, between someone who plays for other people and someone who plays mostly for herself.

Wu Man directly engaged with the Dong singers, briefly explaining their songs. It turned out that several of the audience members were already familiar with the Dong. Many had been to Guizhou province and a few even came to the performance wearing traditional Dong attire.

Posted by Ken Smith

10/25 Neighborhood Concert: Ensemble ACJW @ Flushing Town Hall

Last Saturday, listeners who wanted to hunt down additional music from Carnegie Hall’s China festival had a choice between two free Neighborhood Concerts: Ensemble ACJW’s tribute to the Class of 1978 (the first graduating class from music conservatories after China’s Cultural Revolution) at Flushing Town Hall at 2 PM, or the Zhang Family Band at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side at 3 PM. Could the performances have been less geographically compatible? “Actually, we make a point of that,” said Sarah Johnson, the Director of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. “We want to spread Carnegie Hall as far as we possibly can.”

Fine, but for those who are interested in both contemporary composition and traditional music, the afternoon presented an obvious dilemma. Since I hate making choices, I tried to go to both concerts.

Flushing Town Hall may not have the acoustics of Weill Recital Hall, but otherwise it’s a welcoming venue. This was the first festival Neighborhood Concert I’d attended without Wu Man hosting, but the members of Ensemble ACJW (along with a Chinese translator) had things well in hand. Hearing new music with different audiences is always a reality check, and I must say it’s always encouraging to hear more than 200 people warmly applauding a concert where the oldest piece on the program (Bright Sheng’s String Quartet No. 3) is from 1993.

It was after Sheng’s piece—more than halfway through the program—that I tore out to try to catch part of the Zhangs. But alas, I got stuck for 20 minutes on the No. 7 line due to weekend track work. By the time I surfaced downtown, taxi drivers had just changed shifts, and there was not a car to be had. So I missed seeing how the Zhangs, who so effectively grabbed Carnegie Hall audiences by the throats at Zankel Hall the night before, would fare in a smaller neighborhood setting.

I still blame the MTA.

Posted by Ken Smith