Wu Fei

Wu Fei is a classically trained composer, singer and master of the guzheng, the 21-string Chinese zither. She has performed around the world at venues including the Forbidden City, New York’s MoMA, Washington’s National Gallery of Art, Paris’ Quai Branly Museum, the North Sea Jazz Festival, Vossa Jazz, the Europalia Festival and the Big Ears Festival.

She plays in the guzheng’s vernacular — a musical language at least 2,500 years old – mixing Western classical and Chinese traditions with a contemporary, idiosyncratic sound. Wu composes for choir, string quartet, chamber ensemble, Balinese gamelan and orchestra. Her chamber orchestral work “Hello Gold Mountain,” inspired by the stories of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai from Europe in World War II, earned a MAP Fund award and was recently performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

In solo programs, Wu Fei presents a rich combination of contemporary guzheng compositions and music from the traditional guzheng repertory from the ancient schools of Shandong, Henan, Chaozhou and others. As a singer, she also presents Kunqu opera, Peking opera and Chinese folk music. As a composer, Wu Fei plays her original guzheng solo works inspired by traveling the world while missing her old traditions. As an improviser, she draws on her classical training, the riches of global music of the last decades, and American folk music. Her solo concerts are pure magic, spellbinding the public with her sensitivity, charisma, and virtuosity.

Wu has collaborated with artists from different disciplines and genres, including Emmy-winning directors Pierce Freelon and Jon Halperin, GRAMMY®-winning musicians Béla Fleck, Abigail Washburn and Billy Martin (Medeski-Martin-Wood) and composers John Zorn and Fred Frith. She has released two solo recordings and two collaborative albums – one with classical guitarist Gyan Riley and the other with singer-songwriter Abigail Washburn.