Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it in America or elsewhere!
Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is the 205th episode — Ya Li Da - The Wu-Force and chatterbird Live at Vanderbilt University.
This piece is my thanksgiving special. This concert — titled Migration, was held at Turner Hall in Blair School of Music in Vanderbilt University in January 2018. As the composer-in-residence for chatterbird ensemble, this concert featured six of my chamber works, performed by chatterbird musicians. My dear friends Abigail Washburn, Kai Welch and Melinda Lio were my guest musicians who shared their awesome performance with me on stage in this piece, Ya Li Da.
Ya Li Da 压力大 means “the pressure is big” in Chinese. The phrase has been a popular internet phrase among Chinese netizens for the last decade to express the social pressure everyone has been living under caused by rapid economic growth. I first recorded the song with The Wu-Force, is a project of mine with Abigail and Kai. We formed the group in Beijing about ten years ago. Although the three of us had been busy touring different routes, when we had time together, we wrote music. You can listen to our first release from 2017 on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.
I’d like to share the audio and the video of this piece to show my gratitude to all the friends I’ve made, worked with whom have helped me in Nashville.
Music by The Wu-Force
Orchestrated by Wu Fei
Musicians:
The Wu-Force:
Wu Fei (guzheng/voice), Abigail Washburn (banjo/voice), Kai Welch (piano/voice)
chatterbird ensemble:
Celine Thackston (flute), Maya Stone (bassoon), Melinda Lio (pipa), Rebekah Alexander (soprano), Jesse Strauss (percussion), Ryan Cockman (violin), Josh Dent (cello), Tim Pearson (double bass)
Film director: Tom Krueger
Editor: Lauren Balthrop
Audio engineer: Kevin Edlin
