David Harrington (Kronos Quartet)

David Harrington of Kronos Quartet talks about the inspiration and development of A Chinese Home, a new piece conceived with pipa virtuoso Wu Man and director Chen Shi Zheng.

Kronos Quartet & Wu Man, June 3-4, 2011, YBCA—A Chinese Home is structured in four parts, with transitional elements between the sections and a recorded soundscape that will be played in the hall during intermission as a prelude. Starting within the home, visually represented by footage from the historic Yin Yu Tang, the first section of the work evokes the China of the distant past through ceremonial and spiritual music. A variety of folk songs, including music from ethnic minority cultures in China, suggest rural villages. Kronos and Wu Man perform on a variety of instruments, including percussion and traditional Chinese wind instruments. The second part explores the urbanization of China, starting in the 1920s and up to the Communist revolution, through the music and spirit of Shanghai. Folk music transforms into jazz and pop music.

Music is appropriated as a tool for propaganda in Mao's China (1949-1976), and folk tunes are rearranged and converted into revolutionary songs. The sounds of personal life are expanded into the public realm. Finally the sonic landscape is reconstructed through the electronic manipulation of music that leads to a portrait of the contemporary China that has emerged since the 1980s. Folk music is remixed; familiar music is transformed through sampling. A new China that is connected to the old is represented by an electric pipa, designed and built by San Francisco-based MacArthur fellow Walter Kitundu. The public returns to the personal, though transformed by modern life.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAO1KVxdsNY&feature=player_embedded#at=17