Live: Beyond the Wall

London Symphony Orchestra, Lang Lang (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tan Dun (conductor), Wu Man (pipa), Kronos Quartet, Mamer, Hanggai, FM3, Xiao He, Yan Jun, Wu Na, WhiteBarbican, LSO St Luke’s and Union Chapel; London21 March – 16 May 2009New...

London Symphony Orchestra, Lang Lang (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tan Dun (conductor), Wu Man (pipa), Kronos Quartet, Mamer, Hanggai, FM3, Xiao He, Yan Jun, Wu Na, White
Barbican, LSO St Luke’s and Union Chapel; London
21 March – 16 May 2009

New music from China, with a particular focus on what the organisers describe as ‘emerging trends,’ was the subject of the recent Beyond the Wall festival in London.  The festival demonstrated the vitality of much of the music currently being made in China, or by absent Chinese hands.

Chinese society has recently experienced a rapid rate of economic, social, and cultural change. Thus the protean make-up of the programme, which seemed to define itself by a multi-disciplinary ideal of acculturation.

The big-hitters came early, and proved something of a damp squib. The Oscar-winning Tan Dun provided the bulk of the material for three concerts. He energetically conducted a performance of his much-publicised Internet Symphony, the piece at the heart of the Internet Symphony Orchestra project that used YouTube as a worldwide auditioning platform. On this occasion it was the London Symphony Orchestra performing the work and their professional status meant it became something of a trifle, an allusion-heavy fanfare for an absent revolution. Lang Lang joined Tan Dun and the orchestra for the composer’s The Fire. As with Tan Dun’s other work – The Map, his cello and video concerto – it drew on various Eastern and Western styles, as is the composer’s wont. But this seemed an empty dialectical posturing, despite the excitement and colour of the score.

The same problems of translation and transliteration beset Kronos Quartet’s concert with the distinguished pipa player Wu Man. The bespoke ensemble performed arrangements of folk songs alongside Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera. In this instance, it was the fragility and preciousness of a tradition that seemed to be most conspicuously revealed. Bewildering as it was to see and hear the array of ideas and theatres in Ghost Opera, or to hear the native musicality of the performers being subtly fitted to ancient Chinese instruments such as the long-ge mouth harp, the exchange appeared superficial. To be embedded in a tradition, that which was missing here, requires a deep commitment over time. Wu Man’s solo recital at the venue known as LSO St Luke’s a few days later proved this point; it was erudite, yearning and naturally expressive.

Other concerts were more successful at pairing traditions. Tellingly, in this festival, the dynamic permeability of the modern styles contrasted with the comparatively inelegant mix of older traditions. Mamer’s performance tested out the boundaries of east and west by aligning his own fused guitar and dombro playing styles with a generally sympathetic electric backing. Hanggai proved the highlight of the whole festival; their worldly folk music is anchored in the grasslands music of the Mongol communities at China’s borders, but it takes in aspects of bluegrass, Irish traditional music and Romany gypsy music. They too use electrification, but it is their traditional lutes and percussion and, most memorably, their voices that dominate. Their leader Ilchi’s overtone singing, particularly his use of the whistle register, was astonishing.

The current Beijing underground was showcased through Yan Jun, White, FM3 and Xiao He. From the Cage-inspired theatre of FM3, who inventively toyed with six Buddha Box drone machines, to the wild experimental folk (Western and Eastern) of the guitar-wielding Xiao He, to the sinewy improvisation of Yan Jun with the traditional guqin player Wu Na and the fizzy noise-pop of White, each of the acts played within and across styles in such a way that is common in the underground in the West. This was a night of plural music-making where the multi-disciplinary nature of the festival found exemplary expression.

Published on 1 August 2009

Stephen Graham is a lecturer in music at Goldsmiths, University of London. He blogs at www.robotsdancingalone.wordpress.com.

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