Master of her craft promises cultural, musical journey
Wu Man, master of the pipa, searches for beautiful impurity wherever she goes
Wu Man and Friends will perform at Mount Royal University’s Bella Concert Hall on March 3 at 7:30 p.m.
It has become a bit of a cliché for artists to say they will take audiences “on a journey.”
But Wu Man can say this without much in the way of metaphorical stretching. Musically, her upcoming concert at the Bella Concert Hall will be a continenthopping affair, blending cultural traditions that on the surface seem unblendable.
Man is generally considered one of the world’s foremost player of the Chinese pipa, a rarefied talent in the west but one she has parlayed into an exciting and eclectic modern classical music career over the past 25 years.
Man has often been in collaboration with various western luminaries such as Yo-Yo Ma, The Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass. On Friday she will be joined on stage by Ugandan-born musician James Makubuya, a master of the endongo and other stringed instruments from his home country; and Lee Knight, a banjo- and dulcimer-playing North Carolinian who specializes in the music of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
The most obvious common ground is that all three play stringed instruments that are plucked. This was enough of a crossover to inspire the 2005 recording, Wu Man and Friends, which found the trio both dipping into the traditional music of their respective cultures and mixing them up.
“People will look at me and say, ‘OK, you are from China, you play Chinese instruments,’” says Man, in an interview from her home in California. “In some ways I think that’s too narrow as a musician. My instrument, yes, is from China. But if we look back at the history, the pipa is from Central Asia. Things are travelling. They don’t always stay in one place. To me, especially in music, there’s nothing 100 per cent pure.”
The trick is finding new ways to generate that beautiful impurity. Man first met Makubuya backstage before a concert in New York 15 years ago.
“My dressing room was right next door to James’,” Man says. “When he practised, I said ‘What is that?!’ I knocked on his door and looked at his instrument and I said, ‘Let’s jam together.’ We were so happy to play together. James said, ‘I have never heard of a pipa’ and I said, ‘I have never heard an endongo.’ That was my first experience with James.”
Knight, on the other hand, was already a fan and attended one of Man’s concerts. Later, he brought his fretless banjo backstage where another burst of cross-cultural experimentation took place.
“It’s fascinating,” Man says. “But this is how musicians meet and come together and play music. We say, ‘Let’s do something together.’”
It’s been a guiding principle for Man during her lengthy career. She began playing music at the age of nine. At 12, Man’s parents decided she should concentrate on the pipa and she enrolled at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music a year later, making her the youngest student at the school.
While she was hailed for her precocious talents on the pipa, Man admits her relationship with the instrument was rocky at first. Apparently, not even child prodigies want to practise.
“It’s so demanding,” she says. “All the fingerings, the techniques, the tremolo — left hand, right hand. You have to spend so much time practising. Imagine being nine years old or even a teenager. I don’t want to sit there and practise after school.
“My parents were very demanding, especially my dad. You know, he was a tiger father. They were typical Chinese parents. But somehow I think my parents saw my musical talent. They thought the instrument was a really good fit.”
Man eventually began to see it their way, becoming one of the most passionate ambassadors of the pipa in the Western world. She moved to the U.S. in the early 1990s and immediately began finding collaborators from various cultures. She was a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble in 1998, a non-profit group and loose collective of dozens of musicians that promote cross-cultural communication.
At the time, both Man and the famous cellist lived in Boston and had many mutual friends. Ma came up with this “crazy idea” to base a project on the cultural interactions that happened on the ancient trade route.
“This was exactly my goal, too,” Man says. “I wanted to use that kind of a platform to introduce Chinese music and Chinese culture to audiences. From his side, he wanted to expand, he wanted to learn, he wanted to know more about the other side besides western classical music.”
Man has spent much of her career putting a spotlight on the pipa, whether it is composing her own works or championing new composers who write for the instrument.
While popular in China, the pipa remains a fairly exotic instrument in the west. In early February, Man performed a new work by Vincent Ho, a University of Calgary instructor and renowned composer, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
“To me, composers need the vocabulary, they need imagination,” Man says.
“If they want to write a piece for the pipa, or other instruments, they need to know the culture and background, what the story is behind it and how to use the instrument. I feel it is my responsibility to let them know about it. It’s another way to get the pipa onto another platform, to introduce it to other audiences.”
My instrument, yes, is from China. But if we look back at the history, the pipa is from Central Asia. Things are travelling. They don’t always stay in one place. To me, especially in music, there’s nothing 100 per cent pure.” Wu Man