|
|
 |
CD Review
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Sing Out, The Folk Song Magazine, CD Review >>
Taking the famed Silk Road as a call to arms in uniting Asian folk traditions in song, the Vancouver-based trio Orchid Ensemble combines highly educated performance with ethnomusicological backgrounds. Their Road to Kashgar--taking not one, but many routes--winds into northwest China, an important gateway where imports and exports of many kinds were exchanged. Ensemble leader Lan Tung performs on the erhu, a two-string stick fiddle that, despite having only one pair of strings, creates strikingly vast sounds. The opening "The Winged Horses of Heaven," an ode to the explorative 13th Century general Zhang Qian, shimmers gorgeously with Tung's precise show(wo)manship. She's surrounded by zheng (plucked half-tube wood zither) player Mei Han and marimba (wooden keyboard percussive instrument) player Jonathan Bernard. Throughout this performance Bernard does not limit himself to one drum, pulling in Tibetan bells, dumbek, def, paigu and udu drums, along with a host of cymbals and gongs. Han matches Tung's melancholic strains by staying in the pocket alongside the percussive stabs. Hearing her speed across "Villagers' Dance," an agricultural celebration song from Shandong, one feels the subtle surge of moving with stillness. What's often the most rewarding aspect of Chinese classical tradition is the patience artists exhibit, often never rising above a whisper. So when Bernard adds a worldly percussive blend to the title track, a "musical picture of the Silk Road," the forcefulness of the moment jumps out. Then, like that, it's gone, reconvening at a point between whisper and silence. 09/22/05
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
