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Programs & Activities
Music & Dance
Gao Hong
St. Paul, Minnesota
Chinese Pipa
Gao
Hong is an acknowledged master of the pipa, a pear-shaped, four-stringed
lute that was introduce d
into China around 2000 years ago, during the Han dynasty. A musical prodigy
in China, Gao began studying Chinese music when she was nine years old.
She began her career as a professional musician at age 12; to help support
her family during the Cultural Revolution she played for three years with
a traveling troupe located in Heibei Province, 400 miles from her home
in Luoyang.
When she was 22, she was one of two pipa players who survived a myriad
of tests to become a student at China's premier school of music, the Central
Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied with Lin Shicheng,
the great master of Pudong style pipa music, and graduated with honors.
Pipa music is divided into two main styles: wenqu, a civil form that often
depicts scenes from nature, and wuqu, a martial form that evokes the sounds
and drama of battles. Both forms are highly descriptive, and skilled performers
can pluck and stroke the strings, tap the body of the pipa, and use many
other techniques to imitate a vast range of sounds. The pipa can be played
as a solo instrument, used for chamber pieces or to accompany singers
or dancers, or several can be played together within traditional Chinese
orchestras. Gao is skilled in presenting works from many periods and regions
in China and now world music forms yet her Chinese traditional pieces
are considered extraordinarily faithful to older styles.
In both China and the U.S. Gao has received numerous top awards and honors
and she has performed throughout Europe, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong,
China, and the U.S. in solo concerts and with symphony orchestras, jazz
musicians, and musicians from other cultures.
She has presented hundreds of educational workshops for elementary through
college age students and is currently on the faculty of Metropolitan State
University and MacPhail Center for the Arts.
Links
http://www.chinesepipa.com/bio.html
http://mnfolkarts.org/gao/gao.html
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