Liu Fang

I thought I should do a post on Chinese music today as I haven't covered that area of world music for a while, so I decided to do a post on a pipa (a four-stringed Chinese instrument) musician. As is the case with many Chinese artists, I really like the way in which Liu Fang makes something so ordinary seem so exciting in her music.

Liu Fang started playing the pipa, when she was 6 years old. She's so talented at playing the pipa that she played for Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 11 and now that she is much older, she is regarded as one of the best pipa players in the world. She also learnt to play the guzheng, while she studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, so she's well known for performing the guzheng aswell. The music that she produces is a mixture of Chinese traditional and classical music. She decided to move to Canada in spite of the fact that she was supported by the Chinese government, because she feels that her foreign fans her music more as art than her fans in China, who see it more as a necessary sort of music.

If you'd like to listen to more samples of her music, here are the links to her mp3 albums on Amazon: Chinese Traditional Pipa Music, Emerging Lotus - Chinese Traditional Guzheng Music, The Soul Of Pipa (1) - Chinese Pipa Music From The Classical Tradition, The Soul Of Pipa (2) - Chinese Classical Pipa Music: From The Ancient To The Recent and The Soul Of Pipa (3) - Pipa Music From Chinese Folk Roots.