Wu Man

Pipa, composer (China) Since moving to the United States from China in 1990, pipa virtuoso Wu Man has not only introduced the traditional Chinese instrument and its repertoire to Western audiences; she has also successfully worked to give this ancient instrument a new role in today’s music, making the pipa available to a larger audience and seeing it valued by musicians and composers for its unique tonal qualities and virtuosic character. These efforts were recognized when she was made a 2008 United States Artists Broad Fellow.

Cited by the Los Angeles Times as “the artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western World”, Wu Man continually collaborates with some of the most distinguished musicians and conductors performing today. She has performed as soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras and her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world.  Wu Man is a principal member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and often performs and records with the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet. 

Highlights of Wu Man’s 2008-09 season include international tours with the Silk Road Ensemble to Qatar, North America and Europe. Wu Man will launch The Phoenix Symphony’s 2008-09 season and its inaugural World Music Festival with performances of Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto in September.  She will also perform this concerto with the Louisiana Philharmonic in February 2009. Wu Man will perform the Canadian premiere of Tan Dun’s Pipa Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Peter Oundjian in March 2009. Additionally this season Wu Man will perform with longtime collaborators the Kronos Quartet at the Barbican Centre in London, where they will perform Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera, and at Carnegie Hall, for a special concert celebrating the 45th anniversary of Terry Riley’s In C.

Recent recordings include Terry Riley’s The Cusp of Magic with the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch; Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago, which features Wu Man’s performance of Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the CSO Resound label; and New Impossibilities with the Silk Road Ensemble on Sony/BMG.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa. Wu Man was selected as a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University, and was selected by Yo-Yo Ma as the winner of the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in music and communication. She is also the first artist from China to have performed at the White House.

Wu Man appears on the Silk Road Ensemble's albums When Strangers Meet, Beyond the Horizon, New Impossibilities and Off the Map.