Wu Man

Wu Man (born January 2, 1963) is a Chinese pipa player and composer.

Trained in Pudong-style pipa performance at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she is known for playing in a broad range of musical styles and introducing the pipa and its Chinese heritage into Western genres.

She has performed and recorded extensively with Kronos Quartet and Silk Road Ensemble, and has premiered works by Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, Zhao Jiping, and Zhou Long, among many others.

She has recorded and appeared on over 40 albums, five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards.

When universities opened their doors to new students in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution had ended, Wu Man traveled to Beijing to audition for the Central Conservatory of Music.

At 13, she became the youngest student at the school, and her final audition was covered in national newspapers.

While at the Conservatory, she studied Pudong-style pipa performance under Lin Shicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin, and Liu Dehai.

She was first exposed to non-Chinese music in 1979 when Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed in Beijing, and again in 1980 when she attended Isaac Stern’s master classes at the Conservatory.

Wu Man first performed in the United States as a member of the China Youth Arts Troupe in 1985.

She moved to the U.S. five years later to pursue a career in pipa performance that would allow her repertoire to extend beyond traditional Chinese music.

Upon arriving in Connecticut with her husband (who had begun working on his Ph.D. in chemistry at Yale University), she began working with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet (see below), and gave premieres of works by Chinese and American composers.

She received her Master's Degree (the first such degree conferred on a pipa player) in 1987.

Wu Man first performed with the Kronos Quartet in the premiere of Zhou Long's Soul for pipa and string quartet at the Pittsburgh New Music Festival in 1992.

The Quartet's founding violinist, David Harrington, says he "heard all sorts of possibilities in Wu Man's vivid pipa sound," and the Quartet subsequently commissioned Tan Dun to write a piece for the same instrumentation.

The resulting Ghost Opera, a semi-staged work with minimal sets and lighting, received its premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1995.

In 1997, she gave the premiere of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Written specifically for Wu Man, the work has been recorded twice, the latter of which (with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Miguel Harth-Bedoya) was nominated for a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra.

In 1998, Wu Man was awarded a fellowship to study at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College.

That same year, she became a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project (see below).

In 2003, Wu Man began working with Philip Glass, performing in the premiere of his opera The Sound of a Voice at the American Repertory Theater.

In 2004, Wu Man was approached by Glass once again to collaborate on a commission from the Cultural Olympiad on the occasion of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Taking Orion as its title and inspiration (the constellation can be seen from both hemispheres throughout the year), the piece contains movements representing various countries around the world.

The third movement, "China", was co-written by Glass and Wu Man, and features Wu Man on pipa.

Additional collaborators include Ravi Shankar, Mark Atkins, Foday Musa Suso, Ashley MacIsaac, and Uakti.

The work was premiered prior to the Games, and recorded and released on Orange Mountain Music in 2005.

She is featured in the recording of a suite from this work, which was released in 2007 on Glass's private label, Orange Mountain Music.

She also received The United States Artists Award in 2008.

Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Wu Man began taking pipa lessons at age 9.

In 2009, Wu Man curated a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of the Ancient Paths, Modern Voices Festival.

The concerts focused on music from remote areas of China, including traditions of the Dong and Tujia peoples, as well as Taoist ritual.

The process of finding these musicians was documented in the 2012 film Discovering a Musical Heartland: Wu Man's Return to China.

Wu Man's achievements in bringing the pipa to new audiences were recognized at the end of 2012 when Musical America selected her as the 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year.

She is the first performer of a non-Western instrument to receive this award.

Later that season, Wu Man premiered her composition Blue and Green with New York–based chamber orchestra The Knights.

Arranged for pipa and string orchestra by Lev Zhurbin and The Knights' Colin Jacobsen, the work is influenced by folk melodies that Wu Man heard travelling through China.

That same season, Wu Man premiered Zhao Jiping’s Pipa Concerto No. 2 at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the work along with a consortium of North American orchestras.

In 2013, she was named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America, becoming the first performer of a non-Western instrument to receive this award.

In 2014, Wu Man was named the first Musician-in-Residence at the Huntington Library.

The residency included educational outreach programs, as well as a commission for a new composition.

The piece, Three Sharing, was written by Wu Man for pipa, janggo, and shakuhachi, and was premiered on June 17, 2014 at the Huntington's Chinese Garden.