Wu Fei

on December 16, 2016

Wu Fei, a native of Beijing and a current Nashville resident, is a master of the guzheng, the ancient 21-string Chinese zither. She plays beautifully in the instrument’s more than 2,000-year-old vernacular, and in a contemporary idiosyncratic, experimental dialect nurtured by years spent at Mills College and immersed in the New York Downtown improvisation scene which revolved around venues like The Stone, where Wu has frequently performed and curated.

Wu composes for choir, string quartet, chamber ensemble, Balinese gamelan, and orchestra. Her commissions range from a composition for Percussions Claviers de Lyon, which premiered in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, to live performances in Paris and Tokyo for the luxury brand Hermès. In addition to her own original compositions, Wu has collaborated with many artists of different disciplines and genres, ranging from banjo-players Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn to avant garde composer John Zorn, as well as Fred Frith, Carla Kilhstedt, Billy Cardine, and Jeff Coffin, and others.

Abigail Washburn

on December 16, 2016

Abigail Washburn is a Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, and clawhammer banjo player based in Nashville, Tennessee, whose music meshes traditional Appalachian and Chinese folk tunes. Washburn’s musical projects range from her string band, Uncle Earl, to her bilingual releases “Song of the Traveling Daughter” (2005) and “City of Refuge” (2011), to the mind-bending “chamber roots” sound of the Sparrow Quartet (featuring Béla Fleck, Casey Driessen, and Ben Sollee), to Afterquake, her fundraiser CD for Sichuan earthquake victims. Her most recent record with her husband, Béla Fleck, won a 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. Washburn is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and has regularly toured in China, including a month-long tour of China’s Silk Road supported by grants from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Washburn is a TED Fellow and gave a talk at the 2012 TED Convention in Long Beach titled “Building U.S.-China Relations…by Banjo.” In March 2013, she was commissioned by New York Voices and the NY Public Theater to write and debut a theatrical work titled Post-American Girl, which draws from her 17-year relationship with China and addresses themes of expanding identity, cultural relativism, pilgrimage, and the universal appeal of music.

The Missing Topic in Trump’s Tough Talk on China

By Melissa Chan on December 15, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump’s rhetoric suggests he will push China on many issues, not just one. Some observers have held on to the hope that his phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, his burst of anti-China tweets, and his most recent musings on Fox News Sunday questioning the “One China” policy actually represent a smart post-election but pre-inauguration strategy.