Status: 08/30/2022 11:00 a.m
The sheng virtuoso Wu Wei and the NDR Bigband will perform together in the Elbphilharmonie in May 2023. The arrangements are by chief conductor Geir Lysne.
Please note the current Corona regulations
The concert will take place according to the Corona rules for Hamburg that apply on the day of the event.
In Chinese philosophy, the sheng stands for harmony, life and the singing phoenix. Their sound, it is said, is like the song of that mythical bird: silvery and fleeting like the wind. Wu Wei is a master at making this singing audible.
The NDR Big Band heard this “singing” for the first time three years ago and is looking forward to meeting the Chinese musician once more. “Our first collaboration on the ‘Space Experience’ project, in which we acoustically explored and played every corner of the Elbphilharmonie, was wonderfully inspiring,” says Chief Conductor Geir Lysne. “So I and the band are all the more pleased to have Wu Wei exclusively as a guest in our fourth subscription concert.”
Further information
The air – the connecting element
Wu Wei is a sensitive, imaginative and highly virtuosic musician who, in addition to his sheng, also brings the erhu, a two-stringed stringed instrument, to this exclusive program. Geir Lysne composes and arranges a program inspired by both worlds. Air is one of the connecting elements between big band and sheng.
The sheng is a so-called mouth organ, consisting of bamboo pipes, an instrument of air and wind. In its original form it is not built for European sound systems. However, Wu Wei plays an expanded, modern version of the sheng, with 37 pipes and new finger grips. It can move through three octaves and can therefore keep up with large orchestras and the big band.
Songs for Phoenix – a magical program
This is exactly what fascinates Wu Wei. He studied sheng at the Shanghai Conservatory and came to Berlin as a student in 1995 to learn regarding and explore western music traditions. He still does that today and brings a 3,000-year-old tradition into the 21st century with his brilliant game. He tours with world-famous orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic or the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but also with explicitly contemporary orchestras such as the French Ensemble Intercontemporain or the Ensemble Modern. New worlds of sound emerge.
An ancient Chinese tradition brought into the 21st century
Uniquely, the same whistles sound for both inhalation and exhalation, and the sheng can even be used to play chords like its later relatives, the accordion and harmonica. In addition, there is a phenomenal, pulsating rhythm. Wu Wei uses all these possibilities when he goes on a musical discovery tour, be it chamber or orchestral music, with jazz formations or as a soloist.
He has already received many international awards for this, he has recorded CDs for Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical. In 2017 he received the prize for Best Sheng Soloist in China, the Edinburgh Festival honored him and since 2004 he has held the Global Root German World Music Prize from the Rudolstadt Festival at home.
