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Wu Man and Friends
7:00 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007
Taylor Performing Arts Center
Admission: free
In a meeting of East and West, Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man joins forces with Appalachian folk guitarist Lee Knight and Ugandan musician James Makubuya to create a fascinating blend of two musical cultures and to revisit the music from her album, “Wu Man and Friends.” Wu Man is an internationally renowned pipa virtuoso, cited by the Los Angeles Times as “the artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western World.” 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. Wu Man was selected by Yo-Yo Ma as the winner of the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in music and communication. She is also the first artist from China to have performed at the White House with the noted cellist with whom she now performs as part of the Silk Road Project. Her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.
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| Wu Man |
Raised in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, Lee Knight became interested in folk music while in high school. During college, he became familiar with the music and stories of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, as well as of the Adirondacks. He wanted to learn the music and stories from traditional sources — people who had them as part of their culture and community for generations. He also collected songs and stories from other parts of the world, including England, Scotland, Central Asia, Columbia and the Amazon region of Peru.
Lee Knight currently works as a folk singer, story teller and outdoor
leader, performing at concerts, workshops, Elderhostels, festivals, camps
and schools. He leads hikes, canoe trips and guides whitewater rafts.
He plays various instruments, including the five-string banjo, various
guitars, the Appalachian dulcimer, the mouth bow, the Cherokee flute
and the Cherokee rattle, as well as the Native American drum.
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| Lee Knight |
Dr. James Makubuya is an associate professor of music at Wabash College in Indiana. With the endongo (8-string bowl lyre) as his main instrument, he is a proficient performer of several instruments, including the akogo (thumb piano), adungu (9-string bow harp), endingidi (1-string tube fiddle), amadinda (12-slab log xylophone), and engoma (drums). He is also an accomplished dancer and choreographer, having studied with several master musicians and dancers from various East African musical traditions.
Dr. Makubuya was born and brought up in the culture of the Baganda, in the East African nation of Uganda. He graduated with a B.A. in Music & English Literature from Makerere University in Uganda, a Master of Music degree in Western Music from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D., in Ethnomusicology from UCLA.
His most recent solo performances include Carnegie Hall,
the London Trinity College of Music, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,
and the Brooklyn
Academy of Music. He jointly produced a CD, ]Wu Man and Friends,
in 2005 with Wu Man, Lee Knight, and Julian Kytasy.
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| Dr. James Makubuya |