Silk Road Ensemble Artists

Wu Tong
sheng/composer (b. 1971, China)

"We each play a different instrument, Western or Chinese, but the musician himself is the same. We play the music with the same feeling and the same heart, so its very easy to cooperate with each other."

Born to a musical family in Beijing, Wu Tong has become his generation's most visible proponent of traditional Chinese music. As a founding vocalist of the pioneering rock band Lunhui (Again), which merges Western and Asian traditions, a performer with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta and Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Wu has achieved an unparalleled following for Chinese music on three continents.

Wu began his musical studies at age five with his father, and soon won dozens of national and international competitions in the Chinese wind instrument category. Throughout his youth, Wu was showcased as a national star, playing for Chinese dignitaries and visiting leaders. He entered the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music’s pre-college program at age 11, and upon graduation from the Conservatory at age 19 became the youngest soloist of the China Central Traditional Music and Dance Company, which toured extensively throughout China and abroad.

In 1991, Wu and four Central Conservatory classmates founded Lunhui and began merging the energy of rock music with traditional Chinese form and asthetics. After their 1993 hit “On the Way to Wartime Yangzhou,” which set the words of Song Dynasty poet Xin Qiji to music, JVC Japan immediately signed the band. Subsequent recordings in 1995, 1997 and 2001 made Lunhui China’s premier rock band in sales as well as live performances. Lunhui became the first rock band to appear on Chinese national television in 2000, and is featured regularly on national broadcasts and pan-Asian cable television.

In 1999, Wu was invited to join the Silk Road Project Workshop at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He was the featured vocalist for “Blue Little Flower,” his arrangement of the traditional Chinese folksong, and on the Ensemble’s recording Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet, released by Sony Classical. Wu’s voice and arrangements are also featured in Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon, the Ensemble’s second recording released by Sony Classical. He appears on the latest Silk Road Ensemble album from Sony Classical, New Impossibilities. He has been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, and, in 2004, spent several months working with Siemens at its U.S. headquarters to develop looping technology for a new electric sheng.

Wu remains a chart-topping vocalist in China while continuing to travel extensively with the Silk Road Ensemble. In recent seasons, he has appeared with the Ensemble at such prestigious locations as the Aichi World Expo, the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Millennium Park. In April 2007, he was featured with the Silk Road Ensemble in a series of concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.