xi's moments
Home | Music & Theater

The bamboo way

By Chen Nan | China Daily | Updated: 2018-03-24 11:22

More than 100 bamboo musical instruments are on display in an exhibition curated by Wang Wei in Beijing.[Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily]

Musician to showcase his unique crusade at Beijing concert

In 1991, Beijing-based musician Wang Wei went on a tour with China Oriental Performing Arts Group as bassist. During the tour, he became fascinated by the shakuhachi, a kind of Japanese bamboo flute. Later, he found out that the shakuhachi, which was called chi ba in Chinese, was introduced to Japan during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Astonished and ashamed of how he was ignorant of the country's rich musical tradition as a professional musician, Wang started learning and researching about Chinese musical instrument made of bamboo.

He has found that among the 90 wind instruments identified by the Chinese Music Dictionary, 47 are made of bamboo. The earliest bamboo instruments so far found in China were some flutes discovered in 1978 alongside bronze chimes from a tomb of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) in Suixian county of Central China's Hubei province.

During the past three decades, the versatile musician traveled around the country to find the finest materials for making bamboo instruments. The small balcony at his home in Beijing has become his studio for making the instruments.

1 2 3 4 5 Next   >>|
Global Edition
BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349