Hi everyone,
Happy Chū wǔ 初五 — the fifth day of the Chinese New Year. On this day, people welcome the God of Wealth 财神 by preparing feasts, eating dumplings, setting off firecrackers, and cleaning their homes, hoping for prosperity and health in the new year. It is one of the few more significant dates during the new year celebration.
I am also getting ready to head to Toronto in a few days to debut my concert as a soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) for their Chinese Lunar New Year Concert. In the last week, I have skipped a couple of days from my daily post due to the new year holiday for me to be with my family, as well as intensely my practicing of the guzheng concerto that I will be playing with TSO. I want to thank you all for your support and understanding!
On a related note, I want to give a big shot out to Ms. Mei from Music of May in Toronto. She & team Toronto Symphony Orchestra had 24 hours to work with - from knowing I needed to rent a guzheng to arrange getting the guzheng transported from her store to the concert hall for my concert with TSO on February 8th. Because of the size of the guzheng, I always try to find a Chinese music studio to rent or borrow one locally wherever I give a concert rather than flying my own. The guzheng is nearly 6 feet long adding the travel case to it. You can imagine the challenge to flying one on a plane. Airlines don’t make it easy for musicians either. As I am in shock of what the U.S. government is doing to Canada, I’m beyond grateful for my Canadian friends whom I haven’t met and extremely kind to me 🙏
I’d like to share an article of a fun chat I had with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra about my favorite things to do during the Chinese New Year. Here is the link of the article.
Wu Fei 吴非
wufeimusic.com
You can buy my album Yuan from Tzadik records or from Amazon. My albums A Distant Youth and Pluck are available for purchase on Bandcamp.
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