The Sound of Nature

A concert held on Friday 26th July at the Holy Sepulchre in London’s Holborn, as part of the international Chinese music festival.

Review by Chris Nash
Chairman of SACU Society of Anglo-Chinese understanding

In this Blog I’m privileged to be able to bring you a report on the Gala Concert presented by the UK Chinese Music organisation on the evening of Friday 26th July at the Holy Sepulchre in London’s Holborn. In Chinese there is an expression 沁人心脾 qìnrénxīnpí, which in English we can translate as stirring the heart and the soul. Each performer throughout the concert really flowed through her or his instrument to express the profoundest emotions and transcend any narrow ideas of ‘west’ or ‘east’. For me the music evoked a natural world, a world without borders where people and ideas flow together, organically harmonising to grow new expressions and experiences and rebalance connections to nature. The concert was a musical Silk Road.

The UK Chinese Music organisation has long been involved in concerts and festivals showcasing talented musicians working in the Chinese heritage. The organisation places a very high emphasis on education. For 20 years it has run summer schools led by world class musicians, such as Dr Cheng Yu, internationally renowned for her pípa playing ( a pípa is a lute like instrument with a distinctive pear shape) and Li Pengpeng, a virtuoso of the gǔqín (a gǔqín is a seven stringed zither type instrument). Out of the success of the summer schools evolved the idea of an International Chinese Music Festival. The event I attended was the second such festival.

The range of musical talent and the diverse content of the musical styles were truly impressive. The show opened with an evocative rendition of the well known piece, ‘Three Variations on the Parting at Yangguan Pass’ performed by the London Youlan Qin Society, a community dedicated to exploring the music, philosophy and social significance of the gǔqín instrument. Later in the recital the audience were enchanted by two stunning gǔqín performances by the globally renowned maestro of this instrument – Li Pengpeng, who performed for President Xi of China and President Macron of France.

Other highlights included two pieces played on a very distinctive instrument called a ‘dutar’. The dutar is a real ‘Silk Road’ stringed instrument which is played in the Xinjiang Uyghur area of China and amongst Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik communities, and also in Afghanistan. We were lucky enough to have a exceptionally talented Uyghur musician called Sohret Nu play it for us. Enchanting! One of my personal favourites amongst Chinese instruments is the èrhú, with its deceptively simple two string arrangement. The range of expressions and emotions that flow from these two strings is sublime and the audience were spellbound by the playing of Huang Ziyang who trained at the China Central Conservatory of Music.

I would also like to reflect on one other performance, because it mirrors our SACU mission of building bridges of understanding. James Batty is a keyboard player and composer of original music. He introduced the performance of a piece he composed himself called ‘Red Bell and Yellow Bell’ which he explained was based on the historical phenomenon whereby each new Emperor of China chose a distinctive bell tone as a sort of signature tune for the reign. James played piano for the performance and Dr Cheng Yu played pípa. It was inspiring to hear the harmonies between these two instruments, one from the western tradition, one from the eastern, but here united as expressions of shared humanity. I would like to thank the UK Chinese Music Society for their kind invitation to attend this wonderful event, and especially the Director of the festival, Dr Cheng Yu. I hope we all look out for future events organised to showcase these exceptional talents. And if you have been inspired by this article to try your hand at one of these fascinating instruments you can sign up for one of their education courses using the email : info@ukchinesemusic.com. The London International Chinese Music Festival has support from the Arts Council of England and the SOAS University of London and I’m sure we can count on SACU to promote their work from now on. 

https://sacu.org/the-sound-of-nature/