Wu Man Pipa Master Class

With pipa students Steven Pramoto and Taylor Fugit.

Friday, November 18, 2011
4:30pm
1343 Schoenberg Music Building

Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and as a leading ambassador of Chinese music, US-based, Chinese-born musician Wu Man has carved out a career creating and fostering projects that give this ancient instrument a new role in today’s music world, not only introducing the instrument to new audiences, but commissioning and premiering over a hundred new works to grow the core repertoire. A Grammy Award-nominated artist, her adventurous musical spirit has also led to her becoming a respected expert on the history and preservation of Chinese musical traditions, reflected in her recorded and live performances and multi-cultural collaborations. MORE

Listen: http://www.wumanpipa.org/backdrop.html
Wu Man's site (with Flash 6 Player download): http://www.wumanpipa.org/

Taylor Fugit is currently an undergraduate major in ethnomusicology at UCLA. He has been a member of the Music of China Ensemble for more than a year. He plays both pipa and ruan (Chinese plucked lute).

Steven Pranoto was born in Jakarta, Indonesia and moved to the United States at a young age.  He began his musical training as a flutist but picked up the pipa while working on his undergraduate degrees at UCLA where he joined the Music of China Ensemble.  Steven graduated with degrees in music composition and cognitive science and remains active with the UCLA Music of China Ensemble.  Aside from working in the online advertising field as a business intelligence analyst, Steven also holds a side career as a film composer.  He has scored five feature films as well as numerous other short films. He also played pipa for the film Kung Fu Panda.

The pipa is a lute-like instrument with a history of more than two thousand years. During the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C. - 220 A.D.), instruments with long, straight necks and round resonators with snake skin or wooden sound boards were played with a forward and backward plucking motion that sounded like "pi" and "pa" to fanciful ears. Hence, all plucked instruments in ancient times were called "pipa". During the Tang dynasty, by way of Central Asia, the introduction of a crooked-neck lute with a pear-shaped body contributed to the pipa's evolution. Today's instrument consists of twenty-six frets and six ledges arranged as stops and its four strings are tuned respectively to A, D, E, A. The pipa's many left and right hand fingering techniques, rich tonal qualities, and resonant timber give it musical expressiveness and beauty that are lasting and endearing. -- Notes by Wu Man.

Wu Man will also perform at Royce Hall on November 19. Click UCLA Live Wu Man for more information about the concert.