Theworldinfourstrings

An instrumental soloist from Hangzhou tugs at Morocco’s heartstrings with her Chinese

Concert performer Yu Lingling likes to point out that her hometown, Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province, was the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, a corridor of intercivilizational exchange. As if predestined by the place of her birth, the artist took the art of cultural sharing into her own hands and now travels the world with the goal of promoting China’s traditional music.

At the 23rd Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, held in Morocco from May 12-20, Yu again had the opportunity to play her Chinese pipa, a four-stringed lute with more than 2,000 years of history. The African audience quickly fell under her spell. After an acclaimed performance, she was introduced to Princess Lalla Salma, wife of King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

Yu is a musicologist and virtuoso of the pipa. After establishing itself as a court music instrument under the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), the pipa was subsequently widely used, eventually becoming one of the most emblematic Chinese instruments. It is her expert mastery of this reputedly difficult instrument that earned Yu her invitation Morocco and the royal meeting.

“The audience in Fes was very sensitive and spiritual. They are great lovers of musical culture. Although I try to explain each piece before interpreting it, I think I didn’t need to do that in their case, because they know that true music cannot be explained, we can only experience it. It is a movement of the heart.” speaking. During the festival, I played and improvised with other artists. When doing so, you need to alternate between following the rhythm and melody of others and setting the rhythm and melody yourself. In this exchange, artists are constantly trying to convey emotions to each other. That’s Fes for me!”

Yu has also decided to pay tribute to the ancient ties that linked the Arabic world to China by interpreting an old pipa solo melody rearranged by Ramzi Aburedwan, Director of the Palestine National Ensemble of Arabic Music.

Some of the melodies that Yu plays on her arrived in China more than 1,000 years ago through the ancient Silk Road.

“In fact, traditional music is full of borrowings, so it’s hard to say with certainty what comes from us and what comes from them. Morocco also has pentatonic music, like China,” explained the musicologist who studies exchanges between ancient musical traditions. pipa