Hi everyone,
This is the 20th episode of Wu Fei’s Music Daily — Green plums and a bamboo horse 青梅竹马. I composed this piece in 1997 when I was a freshman student at the China Conservatory of Music.
It was written for Chinese bamboo flute and pipa, and commissioned by the Huaxia Chamber Ensemble. Flautist Zhang Weiliang 张维良 (artistic director of the ensemble, soloist for the sound track of the film Farewell My Concubine) and pipa player Chen Yihan 陈一涵 performed the work. It was a true honor to have two of China’s best musicians performing my work when I was only 19. I made the recording at the premiere concert at China Conservatory of Music in 1997 with a Walkman tape recorder.
The meaning of 青梅竹马 is literally “green plums and a bamboo horse,” but it’s used to mean a close, innocent childhood friendship between a boy and girl.
This new music daily project is in some ways a way to use what I started doing as a teenager: composing music every day. It fills me with joy and a feeling of accomplishment when I practice and create music everyday.
Thank you for listening!
Wu Fei 吴非
This photo was taken after the premiere concert. It was a dinner party to celebrate the student composers whose work were selected by Huaxia Chamber Ensemble. Most of the composition students were women. The man who is standing is my teacher back then — Professor Gao Weijie 高为杰, China’s most influential composer and music educator, the chair of the composition department at the time. All the women in the photo were all his students from different years. The table behind us was Professor Luo Lianglian 罗良琏 , Professor Gao’s wife who taught opera. Many of her students in the photo sang in this concert. We were a big family!
Green plums and a bamboo horse 青梅竹马