Tuesday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m., Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, Chamber Seating
$40, $35, $20; Five College, GCC and 17 & under $10
Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet explore the great music of the East and West. The quartet will perform Mozart’s K. 499, as well as a new multimedia work by the eminent Chinese composer Zhao Jiping in collaboration with his son, Zhao Lin, performing some of some of his most famous scores of internationally celebrated films – Raise the Red Lantern, To Live and Farewell My Concubine, among others. The program also includes a suite of traditional Chinese folk songs arranged by violinist Yi-Wen Jiang, with pipa solos by Wu Man. Looking back to their roots, but with a contemporary vision, these artists meld western string quartet and pipa in an unforgettable evening of music.
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Audience members are invited to stay for post-performance discussion with the musicians following the concert.
My husband and I loved the concert. We’ve seen Wu Man at Carnegie Hall several times and are drawn to her playing. I thought the programming of a mixture of folk, new works, arrangements and Mozart was inspired. The Quartet plays so beautifully and blended so well with the pipa. I’m wondering why there didn’t seem to be many people from the area Chinese communities in the audience. They missed a fabulous concert.
Wonderful concert, but I don’t think it worked so well in the FAC Concert Hall, even with the “Chamber Seating” (which does help, a very little). For these smaller, intimate events, I find this hall yields a distant and cold, clinical sound, lacking in warmth. I’m always just a little disappointed, and wish we had a medium-size facility with good acoustics, with larger capacity than Bowker Auditorium, better sound-design and visual design than anything in Campus Center, and smaller and more smartly designed than FAC. Other on-campus venues, I know, are too small. FAC hall works well for big, exciting colorful events, though. Maybe a future generation building/facility will get it right.
Wow! What a magnificent performance!
This was our first time seeing Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet perform and we found them brilliant! Knew nothing about the pipa and its history until last night.
This is truly an amazing musical example of East meets West! Thanks to all at the FAC for bringing these high quality musicians to our area. Buying all of their music TODAY!
An excellent program. One of the best so far this year.
The music was superb. A fine blend of styles to show the excellence of their talent. I also agree with the fact that the fine art center is no place for a string quartet, sounds like a transistor radio. The reflective acoustic panels on stage seem to be put in the same place for all music. At this concert they should have been closer to the musicians and in a round. The entire hall could benefit with other such acoustics.
I loved the blend of chamber music and pipa. I might not have attended an exclusively pipa concert, but now know what I have been missing. Wu Man was magnificent, as was the quartet. I did NOT care for the video accompaniment, however. Not only was it a distraction from the exquisite music, but it made me motion sick.