Strings of Soul
pipa Wu Man 吳蠻
viola Hsin-Yun Huang黃心芸
Curator Lei Liang 梁雷


~ Program ~
 

Foundation for
Chinese Performing Arts

 

Wu Man 吳蠻, pipa
www.wumanpipa.org

Recipient of 2023 National Endowment for the Arts, and 2021 Honorary Doctor of New England Conservatory of Music.

Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer giving her lute-like instrument—which has a history of over 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Through numerous concert tours she has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Her adventurous spirit and virtuosity have led to collaborations across artistic disciplines, allowing her to reach wider audiences as she works to cross cultural and musical borders. Her efforts were recognized when she was named Musical America’s 2013 "Instrumentalist of the Year," marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument, and in 2021 when she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music and an Honorary University Fellowship from Hong Kong Baptist University.

Having been brought up in the Pudong School of pipa playing, one of the most prestigious classical styles of Imperial China, Ms. Wu 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, Chen Yi, and many others. She was the recipient of The Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1998, and was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive The United States Artist Fellowship in 2008. She is also the first artist from China to perform at the White House. Wu Man is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi'an Conservatories. She has also served as Artistic Director of the Xi’an Silk Road Music Festival at the Xi'an Conservatory.

Ms. Wu has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras, including the Austrian ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Moscow Soloists, Nashville Symphony, German NDR and RSO Radio Symphony Orchestras, New Music Group, New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Great Hall in Moscow, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Opera Bastille, Royal Albert and Royal Festival Halls in London, and the Theatre de la Ville in Paris. She has performed at many international festivals including the Auckland Arts Festival, Bang on a Can Festival, BBC Proms, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Hong Kong Arts Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Lincoln Center Festival, Luminato, Mozart Festival in Vienna, NextWave! / BAM, Ravinia Festival, Silk Road Festival, Sydney Festival, Tanglewood, Wien Modern, WOMAD Festival, and the Yatsugatake Kogen Festival in Japan. She continually collaborates with some of the most distinguished musicians and conductors performing today, such as Yuri Bashmet, Dennis Russell Davies, Christoph Eschenbach, Gunther Herbig, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and David Zinman.

Among Ms. Wu’s most fruitful collaborations is with Kronos Quartet, with whom she began collaborating in the early 1990s. They premiered their first project together, Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera,at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1995. The work was recorded and released on Nonesuch in 1997. Additional Kronos Quartet recordings featuring Wu Man for Nonesuch include Early Music, on which she plays the zhong ruan and da ruan (string instruments related to the pipa) in John Dowland’s Lachrymæ Antiquæ and the Grammy-nominated You’ve Stolen My Heart, an homage to the composer of classic Bollywood songs Rahul Dev Burman, featuring Ms. Wu alongside the Quartet, singer Asha Bhosle, and tabla player Zakir Hussain. She participated in the Quartet’s 40th Anniversary celebration concerts at Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA and at Carnegie Hall; was Artist-in-Residence with the Quartet in February 2016; became the second inductee into the "Kronos Hall of Fame" (joining Terry Riley); and composed her first piece for western instruments, Four Chinese Paintings, for the Quartet’s "50 for the Future" project. Last season in Washington, D.C., she and the Quartet reprised their multimedia work A Chinese Home, conceived in collaboration with theater director Chen Shi-Zheng and premiered at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in 2009.

As a principal, founding musician in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad project, Ms. Wu has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia with the Silkroad Ensemble. She is a featured artist in the documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, as well as on the film’s 2017 Grammy Award-winning companion recording, Sing Me Home ("Best World Music Album"), which includes her original composition Green (Vincent’s Tune) performed with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. She has recorded six albums with the group: Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet (2002), Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon (2005), New Impossibilities (2007), the CD/DVD A Playlist Without Borders / Live from Tanglewood (2013), and Sing Me Home (2016) on Sony Classical, as well as Off the Map (2009) on World Village. Her Silkroad Ensemble performances in recent years have included tours of the U.S. during the season and to summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, Blossom, Ravinia, and Hollywood Bowl; a tour of Asia; and performances with Mark Morris Dance in Berkeley and Seattle. During the 2021-22 season, she and the ensemble toured the eastern U.S. with a program titled "Phoenix Rising," marking the first tour under new Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens. In 2021 and 2022 Wu Man was a leading faculty member for Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop.

Adamant that the pipa does not become marginalized as only appropriate for Chinese music, Ms. Wu strives to develop a place for the pipa in all art forms. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists including calligraphers and painters. Her role has developed beyond pipa performance to encompass singing, dancing, composing, and curating new works. She has premiered works by Chinese composers including Zhao Jiping, Tan Dun, Bright Sheng, and Chen Yi. Other notable projects include Orion: China, co-written with Philip Glass for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and recorded the following year; and Blue and Green, an original composition that she premiered with The Knights. In March 2019 Ms. Man and Yo-Yo Ma performed the American premiere of Zhao Lin’s A Happy Excursion with the New York Philharmonic. Recent projects have seen her rediscover, embrace, and showcase the musical traditions of her homeland, projects she has dubbed "Wu Man’s Return to the East." In 2009, she was asked to curate two concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of the "Ancient Paths, Modern Voices" festival celebrating Chinese culture. Ms. Wu and the artists she brought to New York from rural China for the festival also took part in two free neighborhood concerts and a concert presented by the Orange County Performing Arts Society in Costa Mesa. In August 2012, she released a documentary DVD titled Discovering a Musical Heartland: Wu Man’s Return to China as part of her ongoing "Return to the East" project. In the film, she travels to little-explored regions of China to uncover ancient musical traditions that have rarely been documented before. Among the musicians she met on her journey were the Huayin Shadow Puppet Band, which she brought to the U.S. for the first time—touring to 11 cities around the nation. She has also toured around the world as a Master Musician in the Aga Khan Music Initiative—a group of performers, composer-arrangers, teachers, and curators who create music inspired by their cultural heritage of the Middle East, South and Central Asia, West Africa, and China.

Ms. Wu boasts a discography of over 40 albums including the Grammy Award-winning Sing Me Home ("Best World Music Album") with the Silkroad Ensemble on Sony; the Grammy Award-nominated Our World in Song, featuring familiar folk songs from around the world arranged by her with Hawaiian instrumentalist Daniel Ho and Cuban percussionist Luis Conte; and Elegant Pipa Classics, which combines traditional pipa repertoire with modern compositions, both released by Wind Music. Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago features her Grammy Award-nominated performance of Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as a Grammy-nominated recording of Tan Dun’s Pipa Concerto with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists on Onyx Classics. In May 2012, she released her Independent Music Award-nominated CD / DVD Borderlands, which traces the history of the pipa in China. It is the final installment of the acclaimed ten-volume "Music of Central Asia" ethnographic series produced by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. In Wu Man and Friends, released on Traditional Crossroads in 2005, she blends Chinese, Ukrainian, Ugandan, and Appalachian traditional music, performing alongside musicians from these regions.Her solo recordings include Pipa: From a Distance, released on Naxos World Music in 2003, and Immeasurable Light, released on Traditional Crossroads in 2010. Fingertip Carnival, her latest release for Wind Music, explores the connections between Chinese and Mexican folk music and each culture's use of stringed instruments with the San Diego-based son jarocho group Son de San Diego. Her most recent recordings have seen her pair the pipa with traditional wind instruments: with the Japanese shakuhachi on Flow with Kojiro Umezaki released on In A Circle Records; and with the Chinese sheng on Distant Mountains with Wu Wei recorded live at the 2018 Morgenland Festival Osnabrueck and released by Dreyer Gaido.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Ms. Wu studied with Lin Shicheng, 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. Accepted into the conservatory at age 13, her audition was covered by national newspapers and she was hailed as a child prodigy, becoming a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. She subsequently received first prize in the First National Music Performance Competition among many other awards, and she participated in many premieres of works by a new generation of Chinese composers. Her first exposure to Western classical music came in 1979 when she saw Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing in Beijing. In 1980 she participated in an open master class with violinist Isaac Stern, and in 1985 she made her first visit to the U.S. as a member of the China Youth Arts Troupe. She moved to the U.S. in 1990 and was awarded the Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1998. She was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive the United States Artist Fellowship (2008) and the first artist from China to perform at the White House. She currently resides in California.

For more information on Wu Man, please visit wumanpipa.org or her artist page on Facebook. .

(April 2023)

吳蠻榮獲2023年國家藝術基金會 (National Endowment for the Arts) 國家傳統藝術遺產獎, 2021 新英格蘭音樂學院榮譽博士。

吳蠻是國際樂壇上中國音樂的使者與琵琶音樂的代言人，更是跨界音樂與跨文化交流的標誌性人物。美國《洛杉磯時報》評論"吳蠻是將琵琶介紹給西方的重要音樂家……"。她五次獲得美國格萊美唱片"最佳演奏"和"最佳世界音樂專輯"獎提名，併入圍台灣金曲"最佳傳統音樂專輯獎"。

吳蠻的藝術成就使她超越了琵琶演奏家的角色，成功地塑造出傳統音樂家職業生涯的典範。她不僅有深厚的傳統音樂造詣，也是國際公認的詮釋現代琵琶音樂的權威演奏家。她通過策劃新穎的合作項目和創作近百首新曲目，與全球一流的樂團、作曲家和演奏家進行合作，並融合戲劇、舞蹈和視覺藝術，讓中國傳統樂器—  琵琶成功走向國際，大大擴展其觀眾群體，擁有世界各地的樂迷。

2013年，吳蠻被《美國音樂》評為"全美年度演奏家"，成為該獎項設立以來第一位獲此榮譽的世界傳統器樂演奏家。美國《留聲機》雜誌對吳蠻的評語是："一位女性憑藉自身天性的力量，不僅為中國傳統音樂帶來新的觀眾，也成為當代作曲家靈感的繆斯，她是一個關鍵人物。"《美國音樂》在給她的頒獎詞中稱："吳蠻是當代演奏家的典範。更重要的是她的工作使西方古典音樂的發展邁進了一大步。"

吳蠻出生於杭州，是中央音樂學院第一位琵琶演奏碩士。 1977年，她以全國琵琶第一名的成績考入中央音樂學院附中。大學畢業後以全優的成績被文化部第一批保送攻讀研究生，先後師從林石城、劉德海、鄺宇忠和陳澤民等名師。 1989年，獲得中國民樂器演奏比賽琵琶冠軍。 1990年移居美國。吳蠻曾獲"哈佛大學研究學者獎"、"美國藝術家"大獎和加拿大"格倫・古爾德新人獎"(Glenn Gould Prize)，以表彰她對音樂與文化交流的開創性貢獻。吳蠻是該獎設立以來第一位獲獎的女性和傳統演奏家。 1998年，她曾應美國前總統克林頓夫婦之邀在白宮演出，成為有史以來第一位受邀的中國音樂家。

吳蠻的音樂冒險精神不僅體現於琵琶演奏，她還立志作中國音樂的傳播人，並積極提倡傳統音樂藝術的推廣和保護。她曾擔任美國著名卡內基音樂廳"中國藝術節"部分節目的策劃及主持。她曾到中國西北地區和台灣原住民區，發掘目前仍存於農村的道教儀式、皮影、地方戲曲和民歌中最原始的音樂。她將這些傳統的祭典和喜慶音樂帶進卡內基音樂廳，讓中國民間音樂家成為主角。她參與了多個民族音樂節策劃，其中美國史密森學會暨博物館和阿迦漢(Aga Khan)文化基金邀請她主持一系列音樂研究項目。她創立的音樂項目《吳蠻回到東方》包括"吳蠻和新疆維吾爾音樂大師"、"吳蠻與彈撥樂家"、"古韻--多媒體音樂會"、"吳蠻與台灣原住民朋友"和最新的"中國與南美對話--吳蠻與墨西哥音樂家。  

此外，吳蠻還是享譽國際的大提琴家馬友友《絲路音樂計劃》中重要的創始成員，她在東西方音樂合作中"尋找音樂的共同根源，開創新的音樂語言"。吳蠻精緻而精彩的跨界演出被國際音樂界視為《絲路音樂計劃》中寶貴的資產。西方媒體盛贊吳蠻："沒有她，‘絲路計劃’將是一條褪了色的絲帶。" 近年來，她開始嘗試作曲，多首作品收入於絲路樂團專輯中，由索尼唱片出版。她還擔任了哈佛大學邦廷研究院音樂評委、全美作曲家基金會評委、美國阿肯色州立大學亞洲與中東早期音樂研究中心特聘客座教授、紐約卡內基音樂廳中國音樂顧問委員、費城室內樂團董事會顧問和加拿大格倫・古爾德音樂基金會評審委員，以及她少兒時代的母校浙江藝術職業學院和新建的浙江音樂學院特聘教授，母校中央音樂學院客座教授。她以傑出的藝術成就和突出的貢獻榮獲重要的"美國藝術家"大獎，並被西方媒體與大眾公認為"中國音樂的使者"。"。

Hsin-Yun Huang 黃心芸, viola
http://hsinyunhuang.com Biography

Superb artistry…[Hsin-Yun Huang] negotiated each phrase with remarkable agility and expressive acumen." -Chicago Tribune

Hsin-Yun Huang has forged a career as one of the leading violists of her generation, performing on international concert stages, commissioning and recording new works, and nurturing young musicians. Ms. Huang has been soloist with the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Bogotá Philharmonic, the NCPA Orchestra in Beijing, Zagreb Soloists, International Contemporary Ensemble, the London Sinfonia, and the Brazil Youth Orchestra, and has performed the complete Hindemith viola concertos with the Taipei City Symphony. She is a regular presence at festivals including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Rome, Spoleto USA, Moritzburg, Music@Menlo, and the Seoul Spring Festival, among many others. She tours extensively with the Brentano String Quartet, most notably including performances of the complete Mozart string quintets at Carnegie Hall.

Inspired by authentic folk elements from around the globe, the program "Strings of Soul" is the focus and highlight of Ms. Huang’s 2022-23 season. Delving into her cultural roots, Ms. Huang co-commissioned Grawemeyer Award-winner Lei Liang to curate the program for pipa virtuoso Wu Man and viola. Additional performances of the season include chamber and solo recitals in New York City, Philadelphia, Athens (GA), and more.

Since the pandemic, Ms. Huang has found ways to reimagine the next stage. Highlights in 2021 included her multidisciplinary collaborations incorporating choreography by Ashkenazy Ballet based on her solo viola project FantaC which was chosen to air on Sky Classica, the Italian Premiere Arts Channel. She started a hybrid educational space VivaViola! with missions in expanding the viola repertoire while preserving musical values and history through her dialogues with esteemed musicians of today.

Other recent highlights include concerto performances under the batons of David Robertson, Osmo Vänskä, Xian Zhang, and Max Valdés in Beijing, Taipei, and Bogota, and appearances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She is also the first solo violist to be presented in the National Performance Center of the Arts in Beijing. She is a regular guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the 92nd Street Y and the Seoul Spring Festival. The 2014-2015 season featured a series of three chamber concerts curated by Ms. Huang and presented by the 92nd Street Y.

Ms. Huang has in recent years embarked on a series of major commissioning projects for solo viola and chamber ensemble. To date, these works include compositions from Shih-Hui Chen (Shu Shon Key, which Ms. Chen also arranged for orchestra) and Steven Mackey (Groundswell), which premiered at the Aspen Festival. Ms. Huang’s 2012 recording, titled "Viola Viola," for Bridge Records, included those works along with compositions by Elliott Carter, Poul Ruders, and George Benjamin; the CD has won accolades from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Her most recent release is the complete Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach, in partnership with violist Misha Amory.

A native of Taiwan and an alumna of Young Concert Artists, Ms. Huang received degrees from The Juilliard School and The Curtis Institute of Music. She has given master classes at the Guildhall School in London, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the San Francisco Conservatory, Yong Sie Tow Conservatory in Singapore, and the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University. She served on the jury of the 2011 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the 2022 Tokyo International Viola Competition and will be a juror for the 2023 Melbourne Chamber Music Competition.

Ms. Huang first came to international attention as the gold medalist and the youngest competitor in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. In 1993 she was the top prize winner in the ARD International Competition in Munich, and was awarded the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award. Ms. Huang was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet from 1994 to 2000.

She is currently on the Viola Faculty at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music and most grateful for her teachers David Takeno, Peter Norris, Michael Tree and Samuel Rhodes. She is married to Misha Amory, violist of the Brentano String Quartet. They live in New York City and have two children Lucas and Leah. She plays on a 1735 Testore Viola.

華裔知名中提琴演奏家黃心芸為國際中備受推崇的中生代中提琴演奏家。曾獲1993慕尼黑國際音樂大賽(ARD International Music Competition in Munich)中提琴首獎；日本文化村音樂廳大獎(Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award)。1988年，她更成為萊諾特堤斯國際大賽(Lionel Tertis International Competition)最年輕的金牌得主。擁有如此傲人的成績，使其演出邀約不斷，曾於慕尼黑與巴伐利亞廣播交響樂團協奏演出，並由電視台轉播。其他合作過的樂團包括Zagreb獨奏家合奏團(Zagreb Soloists)、東京愛樂管絃樂團、柏林廣播交響樂團、俄羅斯國家愛樂交響樂團、台北愛樂管絃樂團、國家交響樂團、台北市立交響樂團、長榮管絃樂團等。

出生於台灣的黃心芸，目前定居紐約，是位活躍的獨奏家，在歐美等地舉辦多場獨奏會、室內樂，更多次受邀於介壽館音樂會演出。黃心芸同時也是世界知名的室內音樂節常客，包括萬寶路(Marlboro)音樂節、羅馬室內音樂節 (Rome Chamber Music Festival)、英國普魯夏柯夫 (Prussia Cove) 音樂節艾帕索 (El Paso) 國際室內音樂節室、溫哥華室內音樂節等。1997年秋，她參與了小提琴家林昭亮召集的「’97國際巨星音樂節」，與多位重量級演奏家同台演奏，包括馬友友、傑米拉雷多 (Jamie Laredo)、麥克特利 (Michael Tree)、蓋瑞霍夫曼(Gary Hoffman) 等。

1994年至2000年間，黃心芸為伯羅米歐絃樂四重奏 (Borromeo String Quartet) 一員，並與該團參與了義大利斯波萊托音樂節 (Spoleto Festival)、科羅拉多的柏拉弗音樂節 (Bravo Festival)、法國迪沃納音樂節  (Festival de Divonne)、荷蘭奧蘭多音樂節、波特蘭的西北室內音樂節等，也曾在紐約艾莉絲杜利廳、倫敦維格摩音樂廳、柏林愛樂廳、日本卡薩爾斯廳、阿姆斯特丹皇家大會堂等著名場地演出。黃心芸2013-2015年也曾任韓國Sejong國際音樂節藝術總監。與小提琴家 Jenny Koh和大提琴家 Wilhelmina Smith 組了Variation 弦樂三重奏，經常獲邀演出。黃心芸於2012年錄製「中提琴 中提琴」 (Viola Viola)，其中包括由 Elliott Carter和 George Benjamin 等作品，此專輯曾獲留聲機和BBC音樂雜誌特別榮譽。

黃心芸於台灣時曾就讀光仁小學及師大附中音樂班，師事陳廷輝、薛孝明、陳秋盛；14歲即前往英國曼紐因音樂院就讀，師事竹野大衛(David Takeno)。在費城科堤斯音樂院師事麥克特利(Michael Tree)，並取得學士學位，之後再前往茱麗亞音樂院攻讀碩士，師事山謬羅茲(Samuel Rhodes)。 曾多年任教於紐約曼尼斯音樂院(Mannes College of Music)，目前她任教於費城寇提斯音樂院(Curtis Institute)及紐約茱麗亞音樂院(Juilliard School)及並致力於中提琴教育推廣，並且於2017年成立VivaViola黃心芸國際中提琴音樂節，匯集亞洲優秀中提琴家及學員，藉由短期、密集、精緻的課程，帶來具有啟發性的學習工作坊。

(April 2023)

Meraki String Quartet

Formed in 2022 at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Meraki String Quartet (Greek, to leave part of one’s self in one’s work) have enjoyed a quick rise to the spotlight in the past year under the guidance of Merry Peckham, Mai Motobuchi and Stephen Drury. From performances of Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 to features in the BSO Prelude series performing Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte (2011) and Steven Mackey’s Physical Property (1992), as well as working with NEC’s Community Partnership Program Fellowship to bring concerts to a wide range of audiences, the Meraki String Quartet believes that all music draws on the same need for connection, expression and collaboration, and is dedicated to exploring the full continuum of the string quartet experiment.

Passacaglia Masson, violin

Passacaglia Mason started studying the violin at the age of 3 with Gabriella Bonnett. Passacaglia began her undergraduate studies at the age of 16, studying with Sergiu Schwartz, and is now completing her Master’s Degree at the New England Conservatory with Soovin Kim. Some of her previous teachers include Ellen Depasquale and Jun-Ching Lin.

Passacaglia has been heavily involved in chamber music since she was 11 years old in the Franklin Pond Chamber Music Program. She has spent four summers at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, two winters at the Red Rocks Winter Music Chamber Institute, and a summer at the Montecito International Music Festival. Passacaglia has soloed with the Alabama Symphony, the Schwob Philharmonic, and the Georgia Philharmonic as the winner of the Lois Pickard Competition, the Schwob School Concerto Competition, and the Samuel Fordis Competition. She has also collaborated with composers such as Steve Mackey and Caroline Shaw. Passacaglia has worked closely with faculty such as Merry Peckham, Mai Motobuchi, Almita Vamos, Schmuel Ashkenasi, Martin Beaver, and Robin Scott. Apart from violin, Passacaglia enjoys long walks to find the best food and coffee places in Boston. She also enjoys reading, old films, and spending time with family and friends.

Yixiang Wang, violin

Yixiang Wang has been playing violin since the age of 5 and has performed with Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Xi’an Academy Orchestra several times as a soloist. Collaboration is thus an important part of Yixiang’s musical life. She has been playing chamber music with some of the most inspiring musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, Qing Li, Hsin-Yun Huang, Wu-Man and Steven Mackey. She received fellowships from Yellow Barn, Perlman Music Program, Bowdoin Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, New York String Orchestra Seminar, in the past few years and worked closely with Seth Knopp at Yellow Barn, Merry Peckham, Mai Motobuchi in NEC, Julia Lichten, David Geber and Todd Phillips in MSM; Joel Krosnick, Laurie Smuckler, and David Bowlin at Kneisel Hall, Takacs Quartet during MAW string quartet fellowship program. As a passionate chamber musician and educator, Yixiang has spent 2 years at Kneisel Hall chamber music festival both as a young artist and as a mentor for the Maine student program.

Yixiang studied with Nicholas Mann for 4 years in Manhattan School of Music, who is the founder of the Mendelssohn Quartet. Starting 2022, she started to pursue her Master of Music degree under tutelage of Donald Weilerstein, founder of Cleveland Quartet at NEC in Boston. Her passion outside of music includes reading, painting, writing poetry, and communicating with a small circle of art fans in her blog.

Joy Hsieh, viola

Joy Hsieh, violist, is currently pursuing a Master’s degree under the tutelage of Mai Motobuchi at the New England Conservatory of Music. She is a proud recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship. She earned her B.M. in viola performance and B.A. in piano from the University of Georgia studying with Maggie Snyder and Dr. David Fung. Growing up in Atlanta, GA she studied with Dr. Marilyn Seelman and participated in ensembles such as ASYO and Georgia All State Orchestras.

An avid chamber musician she has performed with Steven Mackey, Hsin-Yun Huang, Wu Man, Joseph Lin, and worked closely with Merry Peckham, Robin Scott, Joseph Lin, Orli Shaham, Soovin Kim, Peter Frankl, and members of Borromeo, Takács, and Jupiter String Quartets. She participated in masterclasses with Mark Steinberg, Peter Slowik, Jennifer Stumm, Dimitri Murrath, Carol Rodland, and Lawrence Dutton. Joy is also active in community outreach and engagement projects working with NEC’s Community Performances and Partnership fellowship program as well as NEC and Boston Symphony Orchestra collaboration prelude concerts featuring chamber works from visiting composers. She has attended chamber and orchestral summer programs including Heifetz Summer Institute, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Altschuler Summer Music Institute, Brevard Music Center Festival, Credo Summer Music Festival, and Chamber Music Athens Festival. Aside from music she enjoys reading, exploring new places, taking walks, and cooking different recipes in the kitchen.

Kei Otake, cello

Since beginning his cello studies with Marnie Kaller in 2007, 24-year old Kei Otake has led an extensive career as a musician, first entering the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School of Music in 2012 under Minhye Clara Kim and receiving the Special Jury Award in the 2014 Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Moscow, Russia. He was a semifinalist in the 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players, and has been awarded with the junior division grand prize and Laureate Finalist of the 2015 ASTA National Solo Competition, Grand Prizes at the 2016 National Young Virtuoso Recital Competition and International Grande Music Competition, winner in the 2016 and 2017 National YoungArts Competitions, Semifinalist in the 2018 Stulberg International String Competition, and both Finalist and Audience Prize titles at the 2019 Orford Grand Prix. In addition, Kei was most
recently awarded semifinalist in the 2020 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition, Grand Prize across all divisions in the 2021 New York Artists International Competition, and Golden Medal with Honors in the 2022 3rd Vienna International Music Competition.

He has studied with numerous acclaimed artists such as Timothy Eddy, Lluis Claret, Myung-Wha Chung, Hans Jensen, Frans Helmerson, Laurence Lesser, and Jian Wang at music festivals such as the Pyeongchang Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Orford Music Academy, and the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, at which he has also performed with violinists Itzhak Perlman and Don Weilerstein, and violist Roger Tapping.

Kei has performed at numerous venues in New Jersey and New York for programs and charities such as Concerts in Motion and MyFace, as well as a performance of the Elgar Concerto with orchestra at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall in 2017. A graduate of The Juilliard School of Music under Joel Krosnick, he is now pursuing his master’s degree in cello at the New England Conservatory with Professor Laurence Lesser.

In addition to the cello, Kei has composed numerous works for solo, chamber and small ensemble, and also enjoys film, photography and visual arts/design.

Sofia Jen Ouyang 歐陽真真, composer
www.sofiaouyang.com

Sofia Jen Ouyang (b.2001) is a composer interested in the intersection and collision of musical, literary, and philosophical concepts. Central to her thinking are concepts, in no particular order: ideologies, binaries, ambiguities, indeterminacies, philosophies, literary theories, physicality, noise, gender, culture, sexuality, music, paradigms, hybridity, distortions, liminalities.

Winner of The American Prize in Composition 2022 and the Gena Raps Piano Chamber Music Prize 2022, Sofia is currently pursuing her bachelor degree in Philosophy at Columbia University, and studies composition with Andrew Norman at The Juilliard School. One of eight composers selectedd to attend Lucerne Festival Composer Seminar 2023, Sofia is a BluePrint composer fellow with National Sawdust (2021), a recipient of Columbia University’s Rapaport Fellowship (2021, 2022), and has received honors from BMI Student Composer Award (2021), Society of Composers Inc. (2021), Luna Lab (2020), and the National Young Composer Challenge (2019).

Sofia’s works has been performed across the US, Europe, and Asia, including in venues such as National Sawdust, The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Vienna School of Music and Performing Arts, Rockport Music Shalin Liu Performance Center, and in music festivals such as Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, New Music On The Point, ICEBERG, and Atlantic Music Festival. She has received commissions from New York Virtuoso Singers, Columbia University New Opera Workshop, and violist Hsin-Yun Huang and pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and has collaborated with ensembles and musicians including the JACK Quartet, Trio Immersio, National Sawdust Ensemble, members of Philadelphia Orchestra, members of Imani Winds, members of International Contemporary Ensemble, vocalist Brittany Hewitt, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, clarinetist Stanislav Chernyshev, pianist Cornelia Herrmann, trombonist Scott Hartman, and percussionist Sae Hashimoto, among others. She is grateful to have been mentored by David Ludwig and Claire Chase.

Lei Liang 梁雷, composer
www.lei-liang.com

The music of Chinese-American composer Lei Liang combines East and West in a colorful and dramatic fusion. His versatility ranges from brilliant orchestral and theatrical works to gentle chamber pieces. He is a master craftsman and orchestrator, yet the lasting tone of his music is nuanced and intimate, as if everything depended on the perfectly shaped gesture. - The American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2021

Lei Liang (b.1972) is a Chinese-born American composer whose works have been described as "hauntingly beautiful and sonically colorful" by The New York Times, and as "far, far out of the ordinary, brilliantly original and inarguably gorgeous" by The Washington Post.

Winner of the 2011 Rome Prize, Lei Liang is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland Award, a Koussevitzky Music Foundation Commission, a Creative Capital Award, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His concerto Xiaoxiang (for saxophone and orchestra) was named a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His orchestral work, A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, won the prestigious 2021 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

Lei Liang was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the inaugural concert of the CONTACT! new music series. Other commissions and performances come from the Taipei Chinese Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Heidelberger Philharmonisches Orchester, the Thailand Philharmonic, the Fromm Music Foundation, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Manhattan Sinfonietta, Arditti Quartet, Shanghai Quartet, the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, New York New Music Ensemble and Boston Musica Viva, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, among others.

Lei Liang’s ten portrait discs are released on Naxos, Mode, New World, BMOP/sound, Albany, Encounter and Bridge Records, along with more than a dozen compilation discs. As a scholar and conservationist of cultural traditions, he served as editor and co-editor of five books, and published more than forty articles. In 2020, Shanghai Conservatory of Music Press publishes a biography of Lei Liang, with essays by composers, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, performers, music critics, literary scholars, poets, and scientists. The book was edited by Prof. Qin Luo of Shanghai Conservatory.

From 2013-2016, Lei Liang served as Composer-in-Residence at the Qualcomm Institute where his multimedia works preserve and reimagine culture through combining advanced technology and scientific research. In 2018, Liang returned to the Institute as its inaugural Research Artist-in-Residence.

Lei Liang's recent works address issues of sex trafficking across the US-Mexican border (Cuatro Corridos), America's complex relationship with gun and violence (Inheritance), and environmental awareness through the sonification of coral reefs.
 
Lei Liang studied composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Robert Cogan, Chaya Czernowin, and Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (BM and MM) and Harvard University (PhD). A Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he held fellowships from the Harvard Society of Fellows and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships. Lei Liang taught in China as a distinguished visiting professor at Shaanxi Normal University College of Arts in Xi'an; served as honorary professor of composition and sound design at Wuhan Conservatory of Music and as visiting assistant professor of music at Middlebury College. He is Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego where he served as chair of the composition area and Acting Chair of the Music Department. Starting from 2018, Lei Liang serves as the Artistic Director of the Chou Wen-chung Music Research Center in China. Lei Liang's catalogue of more than a hundred compositions is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New York).

梁雷(1972-著名旅美華裔青年作曲家。曾在美國波士頓新英格蘭音樂學院獲得學士、碩士學位，在哈佛大學獲得博士學位。他現任美國加州大學聖地亞哥分校"校長傑出教授"，博士生導師，並曾任音樂系主任、作曲學科主任。

梁雷近年獲得多項世界重要獎項，包括美國羅馬學院頒發的"羅馬獎"、古根海姆獎、謝爾蓋·庫薩維茨基音樂基金獎、美國國家藝術基金獎、紐約創造基金獎，以及美國藝術文學院頒發的利伯爾松獎。他的薩克斯風與交響樂隊作品《瀟湘》獲2015年普利策作曲獎最終提名。2021年，他的交響樂隊作品《千山萬水》獲得國際作曲最高獎--格文美爾大獎。

紐約愛樂、波士頓現代交響樂團、柏林愛樂室內樂團、臺北市立國樂團、鋼琴家陳必先、琵琶演奏家吳蠻等著名音樂團體與演奏家曾委約他創作。他的作品包括交響樂、民族管弦樂隊、協奏曲、室內樂、民族器樂、電子音樂、室內歌劇、電影配樂等上百部。拿索斯等唱片公司發行梁雷的十張作品專輯。他編著了五本著作，發表中英文文章四十餘篇。2013 -2016年，梁雷受聘於美國加州高通研究所擔任駐地作曲家，他的黃賓虹山水冊頁多媒體研究專案通過將音樂與先進科學技術研究來保護與重構珍貴文化遺產。2018年，梁雷被高通研究所命名為擔首任研究藝術家。梁雷最近的歌劇作品分別涉及美墨邊境的性奴隸問題，以及美國的槍支和暴力的複雜關係。同時，他正在與海洋研究所的科學家合作，通過對珊瑚礁聲化研究，帶領音樂團隊參與環境保護。他曾被聘任為哈佛大學院士協會青年院士，並被世界經濟論壇命名為"全球青年領袖"，他的全部作品由紐約朔特音樂公司出版。

 

弦之靈音樂會 會後新聞稿  (May 14, 2023)

中華表演藝術基金會上週六5月6日在紐英倫音樂學院喬頓廳 (Jordan Hall) 舉行由榮獲2023年國家藝術基金會 (National Endowment for the Arts) 傳統藝術遺產獎的琵琶大師吳蠻, 與著名中提琴演奏家黃心芸聯合演出。新英格蘭音樂學院的 Meraki弦樂四重奏也在改編的中國傳統曲調 "春江花月夜" 中參加演出。約 300多名熱情的觀眾, 為此場令人難忘的音樂會, 高水平成功的演出, 報以歡呼及掌聲,欲罷不能。

吳蠻是新英格蘭音樂學院2021年榮譽博士，在國際樂壇上有中國音樂使者與琵琶音樂代言人的美譽。與馬友友曾在白宮演奏這有 2000年曆史的樂器。黃心芸目前擔任柯蒂斯 (Curtis) 音樂學院和茱莉亞 (Juilliard)音樂學院的中提琴教授，是當代中提琴演奏家主要人物之一。

這是一場有創意和大膽的「琵琶與中提琴」重奏音樂會。自古以來琵琶與中提琴還未有直接 "對話" 的機會。二件樂器的文化傳統、音樂語言以及聲音色彩都充滿了特色。 吳蠻與黃心芸各自在自己的領域中無論是演奏或教學都積累了大量經驗。這次她們聯手帶領觀眾去體會琵琶與中提琴 "不一樣" 的音樂旅程。音樂會風格跨越時空與文化, 從 Ligeti 到華彥鈞, 周文中, 盛宗亮到 Ahmed Adnan Saygun, 以及Grawemeyer 大獎獲得者梁雷 專為琵琶和中提琴委約創作的新曲「母親的歌」，還有年輕作曲家歐陽真真改編琵琶古曲 "春江花月夜" 的六重奏版。

波士頓音樂情報 (The Boston Musical Intelligencer) 稱讚上週六在喬丹音樂廳舉行的這場驚人,永恆,和創新表演, 樂評說："弦之靈" 音樂會不是另一個公式化的 "東方遇見西方" 的呈現，而是讓我們沉浸在一場聲音之旅中，它結合了黃心芸中提琴的熱情自信和吳蠻琵琶超凡脫俗和永恆的響亮。吳蠻的四弦多品琵琶，以其獨特的彈奏、撥弦、快速重複單個音符 (或揉音)和布魯斯音樂般的語言，講述了充滿詩意的異國情節，令人興奮。在這場音樂會上，我們見證了作曲家梁雷將現代風格 (包括他自己的)與傳統歌曲的組合，對兩種樂器進行了不同的改編，包括獨奏、二重奏和弦樂四重奏。即使是像《大浪淘沙》和《春江花月夜》這樣的標題，儘管我們有時會隨著櫻花飄蕩而飄蕩，但音樂的精華從未消失，很大程度上是因為節目的多樣性。 "

5月6日在喬頓廳音樂會的錄影近日將放上Youtube: ，供大家免費欣賞。也請關注中華表演基金會的 Instagram: @cathychanfcpa.

弦之靈音樂會新聞稿  (concert date May 6, 2023)

中華表演藝術基金會第34屆音樂季 (2022-2023)第4場音樂會,弦之靈, 將於5月6日週六晚8時,在新英格蘭音樂學院喬頓廳 (Jordan Hall) 舉行。由榮獲2023年國家藝術基金會 (National Endowment for the Arts) 國家傳統藝術遺產獎,2021 新英格蘭音樂學院榮譽博士的琵琶大師吳蠻, 與著名中提琴演奏家黃心芸聯合演出。新英格蘭音樂學院的Meraki弦樂四重奏也將在改編的中國傳統曲調 "春江花月夜" 中參加演出。

這是一場有創意和大膽的「琵琶與中提琴」重奏音樂會。該曲目上個月在費城和紐約演出。獲得巨大的成功, 佳評如潮。自古以來琵琶與中提琴還未有直接 "對話" 的機會。二件樂器的文化傳統、音樂語言以及聲音色彩都充滿了特色。吳蠻與黃心芸各自在自己的領域中無論是演奏或教學都積累了大量經驗,這次她們聯手帶領觀眾去體會琵琶與中提琴 "不一樣" 的音樂旅程。音樂會風格跨越時空與文化, 從 Ligeti 到華彥鈞, 周文中到 Ahmed Adnan Saygun, 以及Grawemeyer 大獎獲得者梁雷 專為琵琶和中提琴委約創作的新曲「母親的歌」,還有年輕作曲家歐陽真真改編琵琶古曲 "春江花月夜" 的六重奏版。

吳蠻是國際樂壇上中國音樂的使者與琵琶音樂的代言人,更是跨界音樂與文化交流的標誌性人物。美國《洛杉磯時報》評論: "吳蠻是將琵琶介紹給西方的重要音樂家"。她五次獲得美國格萊美Grammy 唱片 "最佳演奏" 和 "最佳世界音樂專輯"獎提名,併入圍台灣金曲 "最佳傳統音樂專輯獎"。

吳蠻的藝術成就使她超越了琵琶演奏家的角色。她不僅有深厚的傳統音樂造詣,也是國際公認的詮釋現代琵琶音樂的權威演奏家。她通過策劃新穎的合作項目和創作近百首新曲目,與全球一流的樂團、作曲家和演奏家進行合作,並融合戲劇、舞蹈和視覺藝術,讓中國傳統樂器, 琵琶, 成功走向國際,擁有世界各地的樂迷。

2013年, 吳蠻被《美國音樂》 Musical America 評為 "全美年度演奏家"(Instrumentalist of the Year), 成為該獎項設立以來第一位獲此榮譽的世界傳統器樂演奏家。在頒獎詞中稱她："吳蠻是當代演奏家的典範。更重要的是她的工作使西方古典音樂的發展邁進了一大步。" 美國《留聲機》(Gramophone) 雜誌對吳蠻的評語是："一位憑藉自身天性的力量,不僅為中國傳統音樂帶來新的觀眾,也成為當代作曲家靈感的繆斯,是一位關鍵人物。"

中提琴家黃心芸,目前擔任柯蒂斯(Curtis)音樂學院和茱莉亞(Juilliard)音樂學院的中提琴教教授,已成為這一代的主要中提琴家之一,活躍在國際音樂舞台上,接受委約和錄製新作品,並培訓年輕的音樂家。她是柏林廣播電台樂團、東京愛樂樂團、倫敦交響樂團等世界頂級樂團的固定獨奏家。經常出現在世界上最負盛名的音樂廳,與著名指揮和其他世界級音樂家一起演出。

"弦之靈"是黃心芸 2022-2023 音樂季的焦點和亮點。她深刻理解自己的文化根源,加上受到來自世界各地的真實民間元素的啟發,與Grawemeyer 大獎獲得者梁雷共同策劃了琵琶和中提琴的曲目。

音樂會票價為 $15 (7-13歲)、$30、$50。提供學生免費票 (14歲以上),及非學生贈送卷。需事前預訂。6歲以下兒童請勿入場。詳情請查中華表演藝術基金會官網。主辦單位深知音樂對大眾的重要性,也了解個人經濟的壓力,所以每一場都提供免費票。但希望有心人能慷慨解囊,贊助音樂會的出場費和場租錄音等等費用,可線上免稅捐款。希望愛樂者不要錯過這場精彩的音樂會。

弦之靈 曲目包括:

琵琶獨奏:
王惠然: 彝族舞曲               
吳蠻改編中國傳統曲調: 哈薩克的歌          

中提琴獨奏:
Gyorgy Ligeti: Hora Lunga (1994) from Sonata for Solo Viola
Garth Knox : Nine Fingers from Viola Spaces No. 4                          

二重奏
周文中: Three Folk Songs for Harp and Flute                            
梁雷: Mother's Songs for Viola and Pipa (2020) 母親的歌 

中場休息

中提琴獨奏
郭文景: Two Scenes from the Opera                                  
黃心芸改編Ahmed Adnan Saygun: Adagio and Allegretto from Partita for Solo Cello Op. 31 (1955)  
Kenji Bunch: The 3Gs (2005)                                                  

琵琶獨奏:
華彥鈞(阿炳)改編中國傳統曲調:大浪淘沙         
吳蠻: 楊花九月飛 (2000)     

多重奏
歐陽真真改編中國傳統曲調: 春江花月夜(六重奏)
Joint by NEC’s Meraki String Quartet
Yixiang Wang, Passacaglia Mason, Violins
Joy Hsieh, Viola
Kei Otake, Cello 
盛宗亮(中提琴部分歐陽真真改編):Three Folk Songs for Cello and Pipa   


 
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Strings of Soul 弦之靈
By Hsin-Yun Huang

Imagine an evening of the richest folk inspired sonic journey; ranging from traditional Chinese melodies to Ligeti, whole evening seamlessly curated by prize winning composer Lei Liang and a Boston premiere for this unique combination of string instruments.

What inspired us to create this Culture is an ever loaded word in today’s changes all around us. As musicians of Chinese origins, the three of us have come from contrasting musical roots. Yet what brought us together to create is the same desire of wanting to connect, rediscover and learn. Folk elements will always be the most powerful material because it is a reflection of the people, of artistic meanings that evolved organically across time and space in all cultures.

In this program we will bring you music and sounds as early as the 13th Century from Mongolia to 21st Century music from Ligeti. We hope to create a listening experience that will be rich, surprising, inspiring and full of beauty. By connecting the unlikely combination of two beautiful string instruments, it is about imagine the unimaginable.

String of Soul is a recital featuring pipa and viola, a rare combination. The program is a focused exploration of original material that has inspired composers from multiple cultures. Virtuoso pipa player Wu Man will showcase the enormous range of this plucked Chinese instrument; through the prism of her artistry, we are transported to an expansive landscape with extraordinary nuance. The viola has normally acted as a unifying bridge in the chamber and orchestral settings of Western music; however, here I explore its capacity to stand by itself, as well as having a dialogue with the pipa.

In addition to showcasing the wonderful pipa traditional repertoire and Wu Man's own works, we discover deep emotional connections with Chinese composers like Wang Huiran 王惠然, Chou Wen Chung 周文中 (born in the 1930s), Bright Sheng 盛宗亮 and Guo Wenjing 郭文景 (born in the 1950s), then Lei Liang 梁雷 (1970s. Through decades apart, their music shares a common core. We were honored when Lei Liang agreed to write a duo for us. While our artistic journeys have taken us in different directions, we both started by leaving home at a young age and we have in common a sense of nostalgia and yearning for our cultural roots. The Mongolian Song expresses this indescribable and poignant emotion via a mother’s voice: her daughter is marrying off, and the mother and daughter will never meet again.

The other compositions on the program similarly draw on their respective cultural roots — Turkish composer Adnan Saygun, Hungarian composer György Ligeti, British violist/composer Garth Knox and American violist/composer Kenji Bunch each contribute non-negotiable voices to enrich this listening experience.

The poem "Moonlit Night by the River in Spring" is the oldest one on the program, we do not know who the composer was but the poem is one of the greatest in the history of Chinese poetries. The poet Ruo-Shu Zhang (張若虛) was from the Tang Dynasty (660AD) and published only two poems. In its 36 stanzas, the poet has a conversation with the universe, finding a way to expand the reader's relationship with time and space. The poem has an incredible symmetry as it evokes the cyclical rise and fall of life. It is Buddhism in its very finest essence. Here the bicultural composer Sofia Jen Ouyang refracts a traditional text through her own lens.

I am deeply grateful to the Foundation of Chinese Performing Arts, The Rockport Chamber Music Society, Capital Region Classical and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society for their support and trust in co-commissioning Mother's Songs. Further thanks go to The Juilliard School in welcoming a traditional Chinese instrument to its campus and presenting a performance for the school. We hope you will bring open ears and hearts to all that is unknown while listening to this unusual program. It is our "coming home".