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wu wei

Berlin, Germany

About

WU Wei is one of international leading and avantgarde Sheng Soloist, born in 1970 in the Chinese province Jiangsu. Wu Wei has been living since 1995 in Berlin. After studying the Chinese mouth-organ Sheng at the famous music conservatory of Shanghai as a master Student, he was awarded a DAAD grant in 1995 to study in Berlin at the music conservatory Hans Eisler. Since then he has extended his musical horizon and his musical idiom on the sheng, which is more than 4000 years old, as well as on the lusheng, the erhu and the Matouqin.

Though he grew up with classical Chinese music, Wu Wei is equally interested in music modern and improvised - in influences from jazz, new music and minimal music. He has opened up further worlds of timbre for new music in the west, and has opened up new dimensions for music on traditional Chinese instruments.

As Sheng Soloist he has played with many orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic under Kent Nagano and the Westfalen New Philharmonic under GMD Samuel Bächli and also Munich Symphony and Brandenburger Symphony,Lübecker Phiharmonic ,Taipei Philharmonic,Valaanderen Symphonic,(Belgium),Albany Symphony Orchestra(USA),Pannonische Pilharmonie Orchestra(Austria),Metropole Orchestra (Holland)...
He has also played with the Ensemble Modern Academy, with Atlas Ensemble of Holland, with the Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, with the Ensemble Musica Viva of Dresden and with Dresden's Ensemble MUSICA TEMPORALE,KNM Berlin,DSO Charmber Ensemble,Ensemble On_line Vienna(Austria),Bayerischen Staatsoper String quartet,Luxembourg Sinfonietta(Luxemburg), Cross sound Sinfonietta(USA) OrchestrUtopica (Portugal) etc.

He has played at countless festivals and international famous concert hall like: Berlin Philharmonic, Konzerthaus Berlin, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikgebouw Amesterdam, Bruge Concertgebouw, Concert hall Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel,Berliner Festspielen, Bienale Munich, Musica Viva Munich, Holland Festival. Festival les Musiques Marseille, Dresdner Tage der Zeitgenössischen Musik, Bad Kissingen Sommer, Achipel Festival Geneve, Donaueschingen Music Festival 2007,Holland new music day 2008 etc.

From 1998 to 2008 he played in more than 120 premières of contemporary music, ranging from John Cage via Enjott Schneider and Guo wenjing,Tan Dun to Ruo Huang.

As Composer he has become composition commission from ,,Fondation Royaument" France 2004, Sächsischen Culture Foundation 2003, 2005 and 2006,,,Musica Viva" Munich 2005.theater Potsdam 2008.

Besides winning prizes for traditional Chinese music in his homeland, he won the first prize in the world music competition Musica Vitale in Berlin and Brandenburg in 1996 and 2002. In 2004 he won Germany folk prize" Global Root"2004.

For many years he is in search of an own, musical language. He experiments on his millennium to old, Chinese instruments to find concealed sounds and tries to open new sound worlds with own of the modern music; he uses in the classical, Chinese music "prohibited" and deepens musical thoughts by contemporary structures. By his rich experiences he also created new musical dimensions for the own traditional, Chinese instrumental music.
www.wuweimusic.com

Instruments:

Sheng
The sheng,a wind-Instrument, was mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions of the Chinese Shang dynasty as early as 1500 b.C, by the name of "he" So the instrument is looking back on more than 3000 years of history. In an old Chinese reference book we find the following entry:"Sheng"means "to grew and develop" the script sign symbolizes seeds sprouting from the ground.

The main parts of the sheng are the wind-chest with a mouthpiece, the pipes and the reeds. Today the winds-chest,originally a bottle gourd and from the Tang-period on made of wood, is generally made of metal. The bamboo pipes of the sheng are set into the wind-chest in the from of a horseshoes, and the space between the pipes are big enough for a firm grip. Each pipe has on its inner side a rectangular slot, by which the air is released (called toned tone window in Chinese), whereas on the outer side there is a round hole to be closed by the fingers of the player. The blades, originally also made of bamboo, usually consist of brass nowadays. In the center of each oblong blade there is a free reed, movable to either side, which is set into vibration by the whirling air.

On the Sheng sounds are produced in the following way: By blowing out and sucking in streams of air through the mouthpiece of the wind-chest, the player sets the reeds of the pipes into vibrations, which in turn initiate the columns of air inside the pipes to resonance pulsation. The pitch is deter minded by the distance between the reed of a pipe and the blow out slot above, whereas the visible length of the pipes is of no influence on it. For mere aesthetic reason the symmetrically arranged pipes are of different length. Because of its shape, reminding of "Phoenix wings" the instrument is also called "Phoenix Sheng"
In the western world the sheng is referred to as traditional Chinese mouth organ. It is the oldest known instrument, in which the principle of the free-reed has been realized. It was only in the late 18th century, that this principle was applied to European musical instruments as for example of the harmonica, the accordeon and the organ.
Modern developments of the sheng include instruments with a number of 21,24.36 or 37 pipes, the electro acoustic sheng or the giant bass sheng, that is placed upright in front of the player. The modern discant sheng allows for free changing between the keys and covers a range of three chromatic octaves. Therefore it is possible to play several tones at the same time, fugues for several voices, chords, and even clusters with the sheng.
In the Chinese music the sheng is used both as an orchestral instrument. Also in the orchestral realization of regional operas of Shandong ( Shangdong Bangai), Henen (henen bangai) and Jiangsu (Kunqu) the sheng plays an important role as harmonizing and accentuating instrument.

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