Wu Man To Premiere Du Yun's New Concerto For Pipa At Zankel Hall in February

Pipa virtuoso Wu Man joins the genre-defying orchestral collective, The Knights, and conductor Eric Jacobsen at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall for the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun's Ears of the Book, a new concerto for pipa and orchestra, on February 29, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. The concerto — co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and The Philadelphia Orchestra — joins a robust lineup of concertos written for Wu Man by composers including Tan Dun, Lou Harrison, Ye Xiaogang, and Jiping Zhao.

 

The extraordinarily difficult pipa part — notable particularly for its rhythmic complexity and quick tempi — positions Wu Man in the role of narrative storyteller; the literal translation of its Chinese title is “Listen to the story.” The 20-minute work threads through four sections that are performed without pause, each rooted in traditional Chinese regional music styles, including Qin opera from the north, Nanyin from the south, and Peking opera from the central part of China. The concerto, Du Yun's first for the instrument, is the culmination of four years of extensive field research in China as part of her ongoing Future Tradition project, begun in 2017.

 

“This concerto has a very different sound and approach to the pipa,” said Wu Man. “It has a free, playful spirit, just like Du Yun's personality. The challenge for me as the soloist is to figure out how I want to play it; Du Yun said to me that in certain sections, the notes don't matter as much as the rhythm and gesture.”

 

The work opens with an extended section for solo pipa, based on a Cantonese folk song from southern China. From there, the concerto builds in intensity, developing an almost frantic energy, before eventually returning to the more traditional material at the end of the piece. Throughout, the orchestra both underscores Wu Man's solo role and engages in dialogue with her; the orchestration heavily utilizes percussion and wind instruments as well as the harp. 

 

In her preface to the score, Du Yun wrote, “Rather than dividing into movements or sections, I saw polaroids of scenes shot. Each Polaroid, a snapshot in an emotive mosaic. As in our daily life, these polaroids appear unexpectedly on the streets, on our kitchen counters, in our key holders, dish bowls, scattered around deep corners of our living space, we see the moments frozen in time, and our memories relive them, yet again, for us. Our lives, intertwined threads never broken. The work begins with whiffs of the Nanyin, a Fujianese opera style (from southern China). It is my own footnote of a sonic state with which I resonate. These sonic moments ebb and flow quickly with the orchestra and morph into other lands before taking their own shapes. An interjection, a migration to an elsewhere.”

 

Ears of the Book represents Du Yun and Wu Man's first large-scale collaboration. The two spoke frequently during the creation of the concerto, both by phone and in person. Previously, Wu Man had performed on Du Yun's 2020 song Every Grass a Spring, one of eight short pieces by a cohort of leading contemporary composers exploring how the pandemic lockdowns eroded our way of life. 

 

The Knights' February 29 program — part of Carnegie Hall's Fall of the Weimar Republic Festival — explores themes of cultural memory and transformation, through works such as Ears of the Book and Kurt Weill's “Berliner” Symphony that embody the theatricality inherent in this notorious transitional period in European history. “Du Yun's piece does its own ‘dance with the precipice,' conjuring up strands of memory — some emanating from a southern Chinese opera style — like ‘polaroids' sequenced in time,” said The Knights' Artistic Director Colin Jacobsen of the new concerto.

 

The premiere of Ears of the Book also represents a new installment in The Knights' ongoing Rhapsody Project, a multi-year initiative marking the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. In the same way that Gershwin's work blazed a new trail and came to embody the ethos of the Roaring Twenties, the Rhapsody Project explores the current cultural moment through the voices of some of today's most imaginative artists.

 

Following its world premiere, Wu Man performs Ears of the Book with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on April 5–7, also conducted by Eric Jacobsen. Additional performances, including with The Philadelphia Orchestra, to be announced.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

 

WU MAN

Recognized as the world's premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument—which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China's ancient musical traditions. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists. She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, and is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared on nearly 50 recordings, including numerous Grammy Award-winning and -nominated albums. 

 

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa. At age 13, she was recognized as a child prodigy and a national role model for young pipa players. In 2023, Wu Man was honored with both a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States' most prestigious honors in folk and traditional art; and with the Asia Society's Asia Arts Game Changers Award. Wu Man is Musical America's 2013 “Instrumentalist of the Year,” marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument. She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi'an Conservatories.  In 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.  For more information please visit wumanpipa.org.

 

DU YUN

Du Yun, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theater, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise.  Her body of work is championed by some of today's finest performing groups and organizations around the world. Du Yun's second opera, Angel's Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. Her collaborative opera Sweet Land with Raven Chacon (for opera company The Industry) was the 2021 Best New Opera by the North America Critics Association.  

 

Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build cross-regional collaborations from the ground up. Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation (2018), “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival (2019), and she received a Creative Capital Award for an AR inter-generational Kun-opera project (2022). Other notable awards include Guggenheim, American Academy Berlin Prize, Fromm Foundation, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The Carnegie Foundation and the Vilcek Prize in Music have honored her as an immigrant who has made lasting contributions to American society. In 2023 Harvard University honored her as centennial medalist, the highest recognition for its alumni. Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her concert music is published worldwide by G.Schirmer. For more information visit www.channelduyun.com.

 

THE KNIGHTS 

The Knights are a collective of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music. Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they inspire listeners with vibrant programs rooted in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery. The Knights evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers together serve as artistic directors of The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as conductor.

 

The Knights have toured extensively across the United States and Europe since their founding in 2007, and are celebrated globally, appearing across the world's most prestigious stages, including those at Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, the Vienna Musikverein, and Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. The orchestra has collaborated with many renowned soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham.

 

Artistic collaborators in the 2022-23 season included GRAMMY-winning countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo; violinist Ray Chen, who joined the orchestra for an eleven-stop European Tour; and genre-shattering pianist/composer Aaron Diehl, with whom The Knights released a GRAMMY-nominated album of Mary Lou Williams' Zodiac Suite in September 2023.  

 

In 2024, The Knights continue their three-concert series presented by Carnegie Hall, featuring new works commissioned as part of the orchestra's Rhapsody project. Rhapsody is a multi-year initiative inspired by the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. The Knights' third Carnegie Hall concert this season will feature piano virtuoso Jeffrey Kahane and other esteemed collaborators.  For the latest on our season and a complete list of artistic partners and collaborative projects, please visit our website: https://theknightsnyc.com/.

Thursday, February 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Presented by Carnegie Hall at Zankel Hall

 

The Knights

Colin Jacobsen, Artistic Director and Violin

Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director and Conductor

Wu Man, Pipa

Christina Courtin, Vocals

Magos Herrera, Vocals

 

RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin

DU YUN Ears of the Book Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra (World Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

WEILL Symphony No. 1, "Berliner Symphonie"

BOB DYLAN "When the Ship Comes In" (arr. Christina Courtin)

WEILL/BRECHT "Alabama Song" (arr. Christina Courtin)

CHICO BUARQUE "Geni e o Zepelim" (arr. Colin Jacobsen)

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