Aubade

Bill and Fei
Put together a world class guitarist, a renowned composer and a famous luthier, mix together with a pinch of local colour and you will probably get something like this short film by Henry Astor.
It pools the talents of Xuefei Yang, Bill Lovelady and Paul Fisher.
Centred on the Cotswolds where both Paul and Bill live and work, the film charts the creation of a guitar (made from rare and beautiful lacewood) and the writing of a solo guitar piece (Aubade).
Fei is the common factor as she discovers Paul’s instrument and explores Bill’s piece as he writes it.
Appropriately the film gets its premiere in Paul Fisher’s home town of Chipping Norton, in the glorious theatre on February 12th, followed by a live recital by Fei. It is all a very local affair, but with international stars.
Paul
Here is the blurb:

Aubade is a documentary film following three contemporary talents in the classical guitar world as they unite on a creative journey. From legendary luthier Paul Fischer, who lives in Chipping Norton, to prolific and accomplished composer William Lovelady and guitar virtuoso Xuefei Yang, the film captures the art and dedication required to build a classical guitar and to compose and perform at the highest levels. As part of the evening, Xuefei Yang will perform music from the film as well as from her new album.
The first half of the evening will be the film screening. The second will be Xuefei Yang playing.

Here is the trailer

For those of you who missed this, it will probably be aired on Sky Arts later this year. There will also be a DVD available.
Oh, and the recorded music is by John Taylor, so quite a gifted production then!

Songs from the Chinese – learn Cantonese, play guitar better

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With so many Chinese musicians on the world stage, it is tempting to make the link between musical ability and language structure, but researchers at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto found that native Cantonese speakers with no musical training processed pitch in much the same way as trained musicians. The effect in Cantonese speakers was found to be even more marked than in those who spoke Mandarin.

“When we looked at tasks that involved the perception of music, tone language speakers performed very much like musicians,” study author Dr. Gavin M. Bidelman, assistant professor at the University of Memphis, told The Huffington Post.

Read the article here

I also think the written language encourages perception of pattern and speech encourages intuition (so few sounds are used, links and meaning must be made in a split second – does this help sight reading ability?).
Here is another article from five years ago.

Thanks to Kenneth Kwan for bringing this to my attention, at the same time as I was reading it! Now, where did I put that Cantonese phrase book?

Explorations in Sound – Wu Man talks about the Pipa Concerto of Zhao Jiping

This month, Musical America’s 2013 Instrumentalist of the YearWu Man ??– gives the world premiere performances of a new pipa concerto by Chinese composer Zhao Jiping, accompanied by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.

In this video, Wu Man talks about the new composition and demonstrates the exotic sounds of the pipa.

Continue reading

It’s official – Pianist Richard Clayderman introduced classical music to China

In a moment of weakness I once bought a CD entitled “The Ultimate Classical Album”.As well as the usual classics like Rachmaninoff’s Concerto,  a smattering of Satie Gymnopédies and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (well, one season actually), I was surprised to find that 3 out of the 4 CDs contained music by Max Steiner, Thomas Newman, John Barry, James Horner and other names not that familiar to classical listeners – in other words film music. Continue reading

Chengdu – a new centre of guitar activity in China?

If you haven’t come across him yet, Kuang Junhong is a 13 year old genius who plays the guitar with wonderful musicality. His teacher Xu Bao invited me over to Chengdu (in Sichuan Province) last month and I had the pleasure of teaching Junhong and many others of his talented pupils (as well as eating some fine Sichuan food – mostly mouth-numbingly spicy). There will be a few other young guitarists from this part of China you will eventually hear about. Continue reading