Silk Road Ensemble Artists

Wu Man
pipa/composer (b. 1963, China, United States)

Wu Man is an internationally renowned pipa virtuoso, cited by the Los Angeles Times as “the artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western World.”  The pipa is a lute-like Chinese instrument with a history of more than two thousand years.  Having been brought up in the Pudong School of pipa playing, one of the most prestigious classical styles of Imperial China, Wu Man is now recognized as an outstanding exponent of the traditional repertoire as well as a leading interpreter of contemporary pipa music by today’s most prominent composers such as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Tan Dun, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Bun-Ching Lam and many others.

Wu Man continually collaborates with some of the most distinguished musicians and conductors performing today, such as Yo-Yo Ma, David Zinman, Yuri Bashmet, Cho-liang Lin, Dennis Russell Davies, Christoph Eschenbach, Gunther Herbig, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Stern, David Robertson and the Kronos Quartet.   She is a principal member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, an artistic and educational organization founded by Mr. Ma to study the ebb and flow of ideas along the ancient trade route, and performs regularly throughout the U.S. and Europe with Mr. Ma as part of the project.  Wu Man also often performs and records with the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet. 

Wu Man has also performed as soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras, including the Austrian ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Moscow Soloists, Nashville Symphony, German NDR and RSO Radio Symphony Orchestras, New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.  Her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Great Hall in Moscow, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Opera Bastille, Royal Albert and Royal Festival Halls and the Theatre de la Ville.  She has performed at many international festivals including the WOMAD Festival, Bang on a Can Festival, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Henry Wood’s BBC Promenade, Hong Kong Arts Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Le Festival de Radio France, Lincoln Center Festival, NextWave!/BAM, Ravinia Festival, Silk Road Festival, Tanglewood, Wien Modern and the Yatsugatake Kogen Festival in Japan.

Highlights of Wu Man’s 2007-08 season include performances throughout the U.S. with a shawm band, an ensemble performing an ancient style of Chinese folk music that dates back to the 16th century.  Performing on the shawm (a long reed instrument) and percussion, shawm bands are an integral part of village ceremonies and provide an extreme contrast to the refined world of the pipa. Wu Man and the shawm band will perform at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in February 2008, as well as in Ann Arbor, Nashville and Seattle.  Additionally this season in the U.S., Wu Man performs Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Pipa with the Kansas City Symphony, and performs with the Kronos Quartet in Atlanta, Syracuse and at the University of Maryland.  She also gives recitals throughout the country in repertoire including the multimedia work Ancient Dances by Chen Yi, which Wu Man premiered in the 2005-06 season, and music from her album Wu Man and Friends, which she performs with folk musicians from Uganda, Ukraine and the southern Appalachian Mountains.  Abroad, Wu Man performs Ancient Dances at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris, Harrison’s Pipa Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, and in recital at the Miho Museum in Japan. Wu Man will tour China and Japan with the Silk Road Ensemble, including a performance at the Special Olympics in Shanghai, and performs at the Barbican in London with the Kronos Quartet in summer 2008.

A major participant in the performance of new and contemporary music, Wu Man has given several world premieres throughout the past few seasons.  During the 2005-06 season Wu Man premiered Ancient Dances, a multimedia work by Chen Yi and Wu Man that combines projections of Chinese calligraphy with pipa music, exploring the connections between the two ancient Chinese traditions.  She gave the world premiere of Ancient Dances in November 2005 in Philadelphia, and the New York premiere in April 2006 at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, and continues to perform the work throughout the U.S. and Europe.  Wu Man and the Kronos Quartet gave the world premiere of a Terry Riley’s Cusp Of Magic, written for Wu Man and the Quartet, at UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall in May 2005 and the New York premiere at Zankel Hall in April 2006.
Additional world premieres performed by Wu Man include Chen Yi’s Ning! with Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall; Bright Sheng’s concerto Nanking!Nanking! with Germany’s NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra directed by Christoph Eschenbach, as well as Sheng’s Songs for Cello and Pipa premiered at the White House with Mr. Ma, and the chamber opera Silver River premiered at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Spoleto Festival 2000 USA; Ye Xiaogang's Pipa Concerto with Germany's RSO Radio Symphony Orchestra, directed by Gunther Herbig; Lou Harrison's Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra for Lincoln Center’s Great Performances, directed by Dennis Russell Davies; and Tan Dun's Ghost Opera with the Kronos Quartet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Wu Man gave the world premiere of Philip Glass’ Sound of a Voice, a music theater piece, at the American Repertory Theater in Boston during the 2004-05 season. 

Wu Man collaborated with Philip Glass and five other world musicians on Orion, a seven-movement work comprised of music drawn from the indigenous traditions of Australia, China, Canada, the Gambia (Africa), Brazil, India and Greece commissioned by Cultural Olympiad in Athens.  Wu Man gave the world premiere of the work with the Philip Glass Ensemble and featured soloists in 2004 in Athens, and has performed the work throughout the U.S and internationally in subsequent seasons, including its U.S and New York premieres.

Wu Man has recorded several albums on various labels, including a recording of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera with the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch, a solo recording, Wu Man – Pipa From a Distance for Naxos, several other solo recordings for Nimbus Records and two recordings with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma for Sony Classical.  Wu Man’s recent releases include a CD of world music entitled Wu Man and Friends on the Traditional Crossroads label, and a recording of Orion with the Philip Glass Ensemble for the Orange Mountain label.  Nonesuch released a new recording with the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man and singer Asha Bhosle called You’ve Stolen My Heart in August 2005, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.  The album pays homage to the composer of classic Bollywood songs, Rahul Dev Burman.  Upcoming recordings for Wu Man include Terry Riley’s Cusp of Magic with the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch which is scheduled for release in fall 2007, as well as a recording of Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on CSOResound, and a new album with the Silk Road Ensemble on Sony/BMG.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied with Lin Shicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin, and Liu Dehai at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa.  When in China, Wu Man received first prize in the 1st National Music Performance Competition among other awards. She also participated in many groundbreaking premieres of works by a new generation of Chinese composers.  Wu Man currently lives in San Diego, and she formerly lived in Boston for 12 years, where she was selected as a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University.  Wu Man 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.  For more information on Wu Man, please visit www.wumanpipa.org.