Wu Fei is a classically trained composer and performer of the guzheng, or traditional Chinese 21-string zither. Abigail Washburn is a Grammy Award–winning American banjo player and fluent speaker of Chinese. They’ve been friends for a decade and are now recording an album together. They sat down with Jeremy and Kaiser to talk about their paths to becoming musicians, and how their new work is melding Chinese and American folk music.
Culture
03.27.12
Wu Fei: An Authentic Voice
Wu Fei is a Beijing-born composer, vocalist, and guzheng (Chinese zither) player. Her music career tracks a journey from East to West and back again. Born into a musical family, she started playing guzheng as a child. After graduating from the China...
Earthbound China
01.23.13
Appalachia Comes to Anhui
This past fall, my colleague Sun Yunfan and I were preparing to bring Coal+Ice, the documentary photography exhibition we produce for Asia Society, to rural Anhui Province to participate in the Yixian International Photography Festival. Upon hearing...
We’re excited to include in this podcast a number of songs by the duo that have not yet been released elsewhere.
Recommendations
- “Banjo Concerto No. 2: Juno by Béla Fleck,” by Jake Schepps, Bluegrass Today, April 4, 2016
- Gabriel Prokofiev (musician)
- Lau (musical group)
- Q. & A.: The Wu-Force on Fusing the Sounds of China and the U.S., by Jonathan Ansfield, The New York Times, January 10, 2014
- “Sinica Backgrounder: Musicians Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei,” by the Editors, SupChina
- Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (musical group)