Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Grammy Award-nominated musician Wu Man has carved out a career as a composer, soloist, and educator giving her lute-like instrument — which has a history of two thousand years in China — a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Through numerous trips to her native China, Wu Man has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Her adventurous spirit and virtuosity have led to collaborations across artistic disciplines allowing Wu Man to reach wider audiences as she works to break through cultural and musical borders. In May 2012 Wu Man released her album Borderlands, the final installment of the acclaimed ten-volume “Music of Central Asia” ethnographic series, produced by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Culture Heritage, that traces the history of the pipa in China.
Ismailimail 