David Runnion wrote:

>I'd like to invite listmembers to a new page at mp3.com:
>
> http://mp3.com/chinesepiano
>
>Pianist Eileen Huang is the director of the International Chamber Music
>Course where I taught this summer in Positano, Italy.  She is a graduate
>of the Beijing Conservatory and has performed frequently in Europe and the
>Far East.

Don't have the time - or money - to keep up to date on PRChinese
music trends nowadays; but many of these pieces are arrangements of
traditional melodies which makes comments rather easier.  Unlike in the
west, performing new arranagements of traditional melodies is still a part
of the East Asian venacular; so Ms Huang has been able to include two of
the most famous Chinese melodies - Rainbow (aka Colourful) Clouds Chasing
the Moon & Moon Reflected in a Double/Equan Pool - in her selection.  Many
of these pieces are widely recorded (& not just in East Asia), which makes
for an entertaining selection of Chinese exotica; but one which overlaps
massively with my own indigenous collections of Chinese music.

(Anyone else buy the Best of Ah Bing in a Guangzhou/Canton post office?
Didn't think so....)

Mind you:  had Ms Huang tried to perform a percussion-based melody like
Winning the Dragon-boat Race or Terracotta Warriors on piano solo might
have made this selection jump out at me more.  Getting all those notes out
of a single keyboard would give the classic question Alkan? Who is Alkan?
a completely new interpretation....

Live in peace
[log in to unmask]
endeavour2 project <http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>