A bit of China at this year’s Grammys
Two Grammy winners trended overnight on Chinese social media. At the 66th Grammys, Chinese-Icelandic Gen-Z singer-songwriter Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir, known simply as Laufey, won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
“I never in a million years thought that this would happen,” she remarked in her acceptance speech, before taking off on a European tour.
Beijing-born pianist Yuja Wang, who is now based in the United States, won her first Grammy after being nominated four times since 2009.
Wang was forced to miss the event on Sunday as she was preparing for three concerts with Czech Philharmonic from today to Saturday.
Wang was called “one of the most talented musicians on the face of the Earth right now, a person who’s drawn so many people to the music that we play” by her Best Classical Instrumental Solo co-winner and conductor Teddy Abrams.
Born to a Chinese violinist mother and Icelandic economist father, Laufey spent her childhood between Washington DC and Reykjavík, with summer camps in Beijing.
She committed herself to “making music for Gen-Z” when her second studio album “Bewitched” set the Spotify jazz streaming record on its release day with 5.7 million streams, surpassing Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett’s 2021 album “Love for Sale.”
The performer has only begun to get Chinese social media followers compared with her more than 3.8 million TikTok fans. Her Grammy performance video went viral on Weibo, China’s equivalent to X, garnering more than 200,000 views in 10 hours.
“Coming from two different cultures between Iceland and China (gives) me a very open view of music and culture,” she said in Hong Kong last year.
She also played at the Beijing Music Festival last year, winning over young admirers who call her Big Sister Bing.
Now, more of them are asking who this half-Chinese musician is?
Many Chinese classical music fans took to her after discovering that her grandfather is Lin Yaoji (1937-2009), a famous violin educator known as “champions’ professor.”
In 1962, Lin began violin lessons at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. His students had won more than 40 prizes in international violin competitions since the 1980s, including 13 gold medals.
Pianist Wang is known for her brilliance, immaculate performances and trademark short dress and deep bow.
Early on, conservative musicians and media criticized her for not dressing like a classical musician but few criticized her technique.
Wang, who gave her first piano performance at 7 and left China at the age of 14 without any knowledge of English, describes herself as “independent-minded and selfreliant.”
Her international and domestic support has grown over time.
Last December, Wang completed a 17-day China tour in nine cities, including Shanghai. Tickets ran out in minutes, and there were big queues for her concerts.
In her final two Beijing concerts, Wang performed 50-minute encores.
These two Grammy winners join the growing number of musicians with Chinese heritage who have won Grammys.
Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma has won 19 Grammy Awards since 1985. He founded the Silkroad Ensemble in 1998 to promote crosscultural artistic interchange. The group is named after the historical trading route of the same name.
Wu Man, a pipa (a four-stringed Chinese instrument resembling a lute) player and composer, is the founding member of Ma’s Silkroad project and premiered works by such composers as Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley and Tan Dun.
Wu was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and has recorded more than 40 albums, including “Sing Me Home” with the Silkroad Ensemble, which won the 59th Grammy for
Best World Music Album.
She also featured in a few Grammy-nominated albums, including Harrison’s “Pipa Concerto” and “Our World in Song.”
Composer Tan Dun won both the Grammy and Oscar for his original score for Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Yangjin Lamu, a musician from the Xizang Autonomous Region, sang “Words of Wish Fulfillment” in Paul Winter Consort’s CD “Miho: Journey to the Mountain.”
Japan’s Miho Museum, which was designed by I.M. Pei, commissioned the album, which won Best New Age Album Grammy in 2011.