Guzheng and orchestra 《Hello Gold Mountain 同舟》
Hi everyone,
When you see this post, I will be on my way to Toronto, Canada. It will be my debut concert for Toronto. Toronto has the second largest Chinese population following New York City and is the fourth largest metropolitan in North America. I am utterly honored to be the featured soloist to perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) for the city’s Lunar New Year Concert on Feb.8th! If you are in Toronto, please join us for this exciting evening of music celebration for the Year of the Snake! I am not sure if there are still tickets left as I was told by team TSO last week that they were expecting a completely packed house at the beautiful Roy Thomson Hall in downtown Toronto. Details of the concert is available here.
The piece I will performing in this concert is a guzheng (aka zheng) concerto, composed by maestro Tan Dun for zheng and string orchestra. Playing with a full orchestra (anywhere from 50-80 musicians) is an enormous task for a soloist. As an instrumentalist, it requires a very different kind of skill than playing alone, or playing with just a few people. It is probably many (if not all) soloists’ dream to play with an orchestra. To me, it is the most luxury thing on earth to have a full orchestra playing with me. I am grateful for my management Halac Artists for making this dream of mine come true, and keeping making it happen for me to collaborate with more world’s top notch orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Bellingham Symphony etc..
If you wonder what it sounds like when I play with a full orchestra, below is a video of the Lehigh University Philharmonic performing my composition 《Hello Gold Mountain 同舟》, a MAP Fund awardee work inspired by real stories of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai from Europe before and during World War II, and built lives in China. If you’d like to learn more about this composition, please visit hellogoldmountain.com.
I will resume my daily music post next week after I come back from Toronto. Meanwhile, I will be sharing photos and short clips of my trip and rehearsals in Toronto on my social media sites: Substack Notes, Blusky @wufei.bsky.social, Instagram (@wufeimusic), Facebook (@realwufeimusic) if you are on any of them.
Have a wonderful rest of the week!
Wu Fei 吴非
wufeimusic.com
Wu Fei's 《Hello Gold Mountain 同舟》full symphony premiere with Lehigh University Philharmonic at Zoellner Arts Center on Feb. 11, 2023. Blew is the time run through in details. The music starts at 14:35 in the video.
Composer/guzheng/voice: Wu Fei
Oud: Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz
Conductor: Paul Salerni
0:00 - 14:35 Historical introduction of the composition by Mark Wilson - artistic director at Zoellner Arts Center
14:35 - 16:04 Movement 1 《Overture》
16:05 - 21:43 Movement 2 《 Ho Fengshan - Chinese Schindler 》folk song from Hunan, China, the birth place of Ho Fengshan 何凤山.
21:44 - 22:17 Bridge I
22:18 - 25:37 Movement 3 《Lily and Meimei》
25:38 - 26:12 Bridge II
26:13 - 28:40 Oud solo improvisation
28:41- 31:04 Guzheng improvisation
31:05 - 33:23 Guzheng and oud duet improvisation
33:24 - 34:40 Movement 4 《Stateless Dance》
34:41 - 43:45 Movement 5 《The Raid 》full orchestral improvisation conducted by Wu Fei with lightning batons and gloves
43:46 - 45:22 Poem 《Take Me Under Your Wing》- written by Chaim Nachman Bialik, born in the Russian Empire (present day Ukraine) in1873, died in Vienna, Austria in1934.
45:23 - 50:00 Movement 6 《Shanghai Dark Sea》Wu Fei vocal with orchestra
50:01 - 54:00 Movement 7 《Hello Gold Mountain》full orchestra chanting
Poem 《Take Me Under Your Wing》:
Take me under your wing, be my mother, my sister.
Take my head to your breast, my banished prayers to your nest.
One merciful twilight hour, hear my pain, bend your head.
They say there is youth in the world. Where has my youth fled?
Listen! another secret: I have been seared by a flame.
They say there is love in the world. How do we know love’s name?
I was deceived by the stars. There was a dream; it passed.
I have nothing at all in the world, nothing but a vast waste.
Take me under your wing, be my mother, my sister.
Take my head to your breast, my banished prayers to your nest.