1. Wu Man has performed and recorded extensively with the 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.
25 Facts About Wu Man
1. 2.
Wu Man has recorded and appeared on over 40 albums, five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards.
3.
Wu Man additionally received The United States Artists Award in 2008.
4.
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.
5.
Wu Man 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.
6.
Wu Man first performed in the United States as a member of the China Youth Arts Troupe in 1985.
7.
Wu Man then moved to the US five years later to pursue a career in pipa performance that would allow her repertoire to extend beyond traditional Chinese music.
8.
In 1998, Wu Man was awarded a fellowship to study at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College.
9.
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.
10.
Wu Man is featured in the recording of a suite from this work, which was released in 2007 on Glass's private label, Orange Mountain Music.
11.
In 2004, Wu Man was approached by Glass to collaborate on a commission from the Cultural Olympiad on the occasion of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
12.
In 2009, Wu Man curated a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of the Ancient Paths, Modern Voices Festival.
13.
Wu Man is the first performer of a non-Western instrument to receive this award.
14.
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.
15.
In 2014, Wu Man was named the first Musician-in-Residence at the Huntington Library.
16.
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.
17.
Wu Man's most recent project with the Quartet is a multimedia work entitled A Chinese Home, co-conceived by Wu Man, Harrington, and Chinese theater director Chen Shi-Zheng.
18.
Wu Man is a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, a non-profit organization established in 1998 to foster cross-cultural communication through musical performance and education.
19.
Wu Man has performed regularly with the Ensemble since its inception in 2000, recording five albums and touring internationally.
20.
Wu Man appears on this album as a soloist, performing Lou Harrison's Pipa Concerto with the CSO and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
21.
Wu Man has performed multiple times with Yo-Yo Ma outside of the Silk Road Ensemble.
22.
The project forms the first installment in what Wu Man refers to as her larger "Return to the East" project, which includes many of the projects discussed below, as well as her documentary Discovering a Musical Heartland.
23.
In 2010, Wu Man traveled to Taiwan to study the music of Taiwanese aborigines, leading to a series of concerts in 2012 titled "Wu Man and Aboriginal Friends from Taiwan ".
24.
In 2013, Wu Man received an Individual Artist Fellowship from San Diego Foundation's Creative Catalyst Fund to pursue a project titled "When China Meets Latin America", collaborating with son jarocho quartet Son de San Diego.
25.
Wu Man performed in several concerts at the 2023 Ojai Music Festival, including two performances of "Ghost Opera".