Friday May 9, 2014 – 12-12:50pm, Performance Centre, Roundhouse

Geling Jiang － sanxian, ruan, zheng

Geling Jiang is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist on sanxian (three-string fretless lute), zheng, pipa and ruan. She started her professional training at the age of 10. After graduated from Wu Han Conservatory of Music, she joined the Chime Bell Ensemble of Hubei Province for 20 years. With the ensemble, she recorded numerous radio broadcasts, TV programs, and films and toured in the United States, Japan and Singapore.

In 2004, Geling immigrated to Canada and started to perform with a number of Vancouver ensembles, including Orchid Ensemble, Red Chamber, and Cloud Bell Ensemble. With the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra and BC Chinese Orchestra, she gives regular concerts as a core member and soloist. In the past few years, she has collaborated with musicians from different cultures and adapted techniques from other ethnic instruments on her own instruments. On Red Chamber’s second album, she performed her own composition for solo sanxian. Geling has toured across Canada, the United States, Netherlands, Philippian, Malaysia, and China, performing at music festivals, prestigious concert halls, and educational institutions.

Song Yun－erhu

Song Yun’s unique approach to music comes from her studies of both Chinese and western music since a young age.Combining the techniques of the western violin with the sensibility of the erhu, Song is an ideal interpreter of new compositions. She has premiered numerous new works at the Sonic Boom Festival. Her performance of the erhu concertoNight Bird Singing by Mark Armanini with Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra has been recorded for national release.Song performs frequently as a soloist with the BC Chinese Orchestra and the BC Chinese Music Ensemble.

Song has won numerous awards in China: the first prize of the National Instrumental Competition in 1982, “The Best Performer” in The Erhu Performing Arts Association of Beijing in 1983, the first prize Springs Autumn National Arts Invitational Erhu Competition in 1986, and the Grand Prix of the Central TV Erhu Excellence Award in 1989, and subsequently appointed as a Committee Member of the Chinese Music Association. Song studied with erhu master Liu Ming-yuan at the China Conservatory of Music and graduated in 1987. She moved to Japan to perform and teach for many years and released numerous CDs. In 2004, she immigrated to Canada. She is currently a faculty at the BC Youth Chinese Orchestra and performs with various ensembles in Vancouver.

Charlie Lui – dizi/Chinese bamboo flute  (呂畇初 -笛子)

A multiple award winner, Charlie masters a wide range of Chinese wind instruments. Charlie is the principal dizi player and general director of the BC Chinese Music Orchestra, a member of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, and the co-founder of Pentatonics. As a soloist, Charlie has performed numerous dizi concerti and has performed on a number of CDs. In 2011, he premiered concerto grosso“Tsu-ur Song”  (潮歌) by Dr. Ning Wang (王寧) with the Nu: BC and the BC Chinese Music Ensemble in a Canada-China collaboration. In the same year Charlie also performed Steve Chatman’s “Earth Songs” with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Charlie studied the dizi with Jian Min Pan (潘建明) in Vancouver and Wei-Yu Tan (譚謂裕) in China.