Chinese idol: part two

Wu Man plays the pipa in this Silk Road Ensemble recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner." In her essay below, she recalls the first time she heard the national anthem of the United States, in Beijing in 1979, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.

We published the first half of Wu Man's essay, in which she discusses her childhood in China during the Cultural Revolution, in the May 2011 newsletter. The second half follows.

The news of the open auditions swept the country like a long awaited storm after a drought. Students all over the country who were remotely gifted were itching for a try. It was a bit like American Idol! Auditions for the Central Conservatory and its affiliated middle school took place first. The recruiters scattered around to the four cities that allowed them to cover the whole country: East, West, North and South. The location for the auditions for my area was in Shanghai.

The trip to Shanghai from my hometown Hangzhou took me a whole day by train. (Now it is only one and half hour by high speed train.) I went to Shanghai alone because train tickets were too expensive for my family to go. My parents dropped me off at the train station and my uncle in Shanghai picked me up. I did silent practice all the way to Shanghai. Then the day of the audition finally came. I expected to see many kids like myself who were auditioning, but I was still astonished to see a few thousand students at the door. The lines seemed miles long, snaking around several city blocks. There were 800 students auditioning for the pipa places alone! Of those, only about ten students would advance to the second round. I became one of those.

When I auditioned for the second round, it was close to midnight and it was raining. When I walked into the room, I saw more than ten adults waiting for me. They were music professors and  newspaper reporters, and they were all there to hear me play. I think that they had heard about my musical talent from the pipa teacher who had auditioned me in the first round. (Jokingly, he still shows off about having “discovered” me every time he sees me!) After I played the piece called “Dance of the Yi People,” the audience gave me a big round of applause and asked me to play an encore, as if it were a concert.

On the second day, the story of my audition was reported by two of the biggest newspapers, and then it seemed like everybody knew that there was a young, talented pipa player named Wu Man. I became a young star overnight. Soon after that, I was showcased in a concert held in the biggest stadium in Beijing, featuring all of the young talents discovered in 1977. The concert was attended by the Vice Premier and other government leaders and was televised nationally. It was a signal from the Chinese government that music and arts were once again revitalized in China. I was the only pipa player among other young talents who played both Chinese and Western instruments. The recording of my performance from this concert was broadcasted throughout the country, and suddenly I was a role model for all young pipa students. When the auditions were held the following year, everybody was playing “Dance of the Yi People.” 

For the next 12 years, I studied at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, from middle to high school, and went on to the graduate school—all on the same campus. There were 200 other students admitted to the Conservatory in 1977. We were told that we were the “crown jewels” and the future of China. The central government appointed the best professors and committed the best resources they could afford to provide at the time. I had three teachers: one for my academics (this one was like my foster father), one for managing my daily living, and one to make sure that I followed the correct ideology.

The Chinese musical education system was set up by the Russian educators in the 1950s. It is systematic and strict. I walked the line in a square almost every day, from the dorm to the classroom, from classroom to cafeteria, and from cafeteria to practice room and back to the dorm. The school also had a rule that prohibited boyfriend girlfriend relationships.  Being so favored and knowing our responsibilities, everybody studied hard.  We did not want to disappoint. We practiced eight hours a day on average. I studied with the greatest music educators and pipa masters in the country throughout my school years in Beijing. They were like my parents to me. Even after I emigrated to the United States, I still wrote to them regularly and visited them every time I went back to Beijing until two of them passed away.

I would have advanced naturally up the academic ladder and could be doing very well at the Conservatory if I had stayed there. But two events happened while I was at school that made me very curious about the Western world. In 1979, the conductor Seiji Ozawa came to Beijing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This was the first time that a world-class orchestra ever visited China since World War II. This had been inconceivable even two years before because U.S. imperialism had been the “enemy” for as long as I could remember. You can imagine that music lovers in Beijing were ready to riot to get a ticket to the concert. No concert hall in Beijing was big enough to accommodate so many eager and enthusiastic music lovers, so the concert was held in the very same stadium where I was showcased in 1977. 

When I saw the China-born maestro conducting the orchestra, I was shocked by his romantic style in conducting and by the precision, the power, and professionalism of the orchestra. I can still remember that at the beginning of the first concert, they played the national anthems of both countries, and at the end of the concert they played “Stars and Stripes Forever” as an encore. I had never heard "The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Stars and Stripes Forever” before then. The energy and inspiration of the music made my heart ache. They performed three concerts in Beijing. In one of the concerts, they played the pipa concerto “Sisters of the Grassland” with my pipa professor. For the first time, I saw the possibility of a Chinese traditional musical instrument going to the world stage. Most impressive to me, I saw a talented Asian musician, like Mr. Ozawa, becoming a legendary figure in America, the land of opportunity.

The second event that touched my musical career the most was in the early 1980s, when the violinist Isaac Stern came to Beijing. He gave unforgettable concerts and master classes at my conservatory that were open to the public. This was all captured in the documentary film “From Mozart to Mao.” I was sitting in the audience. It was the first time I ever attended an open master class, and I was fascinated by his teaching style and perfectionism in musical interpretation and presentation. He taught us how music should be presented by paying attention to every tiny detail. At the conservatory, our role model was Paganini and his “devil style” of training. We were pretty close to his training style for technical perfection. I have since learned perfectionism in musical interpretation and presentation.

Not only did Mr. Stern teach me how music should be presented, he also made me aware of Carnegie Hall in New York City because of his close association with the organization. At that moment, it became a dream of mine and of many talented musicians in China to perform at Carnegie Hall one day. I am proud to say that I am now a frequent featured musician at Carnegie Hall.

While I was at the conservatory, China became more open every day. Many new musical ideas came into China, such as atonal concepts, John Cage, and music by Minimalism icons Terry Reily, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and many others. I was among the first who embraced these new ideas and actively experimented. I premiered essentially all the new music created by young composers in China at the time. Many of them later established themselves in the West.

In 1985, I visited seven cities in the United States as a member of China Youth Arts Troupe and gained first-hand experience of America. My first serious interaction and collaboration with a Western musical group, however, was with the Kronos Quartet at the Pittsburgh New Music Festival in 1993 after I had moved to the States. It was the start of a new era for this 2000 year-old instrument. Since then, I have brought the pipa to the world stage by collaborating with hundreds of musicians and performing organizations around the world and appeared at the most prestigious concert halls around the globe. 

Today, I think of my parents and all my teachers and schools I have attended every time I play “The Dance of the Yi people.” I thank them silently hundreds of times in my heart. They made me who I am today and I am in debt to them forever.

Wu Man has been a member of the Silk Road Ensemble since 1999. Since moving to the United States from China in 1990, Wu Man has introduced the traditional Chinese pipa to Western audiences and worked to give this ancient instrument a new role in contemporary music. She wrote this personal essay for her son's school and graciously shared it with us.

This essay is continued from the May 2011 issue.