Sound of Freedom

Yang Jing

Born: December,1963

Place: Xuchang,Henan Province

Job Title: Musician

Role Model: Minoru Miki(Japanese Composer,born 1930)

Pipa player Yang Jing has broken traditional boundaries of performance and taken this ancient Chinese instrument to entirely new audiences. Yet from the time when, aged six, she first picked up a pipa, it took almost 30 years for her to find the freedom to express her own ideas through her music. It was a long haul she has never regretted.

When she first arrived in Shanghai in 1982 to take the entrance exams for the Shanghai Conservatory, some locals told her: "You are from Henan, a place with no culture. Go back where you came from." At that time largely self-taught, Yang's answer was to top the tests, though she quickly found herself frustrated and depressed at the conservatory's teaching.

She recalls: "I had to study all over again what I had played before, and different teachers had different ideas and asked me to play in their way. I didn't know what to do, and even thought about leaving university, but one incident made me change my opinion about the playing of traditional Chinese music.

"In 1984, Professor Ye Dong completed his interpretation of ancient Dunhuang pipa music after 25 years' research. What he discovered was that pipa music during the Tang Dynasty was totally different from now. I thought: 'All traditional music masters and players said we should carry on the great tradition, but it seems nobody knew what the tradition was. Each dynasty tended to destroy the culture of its predecessor, so there was less and less tradition left. I was taught to follow tradition in playing my music, but what should I play?'"

After graduation, Yang joined the China Central Traditional Chinese Music Orchestra, and traveled abroad every year to play. "The culture shock was enormous," she said. "I listened to more music, and was amazed by the power of music I could bring to foreign audiences. I was also very interested in what people of different cultures thought of my music. I wanted to express myself, but for 10 years I was only allowed to play one or two of the more famous pipa pieces, such as Surrounded On All Sides (shi mian mai fu).

"The head of the orchestra thought audiences wouldn't like other pieces, but I believed that musicians should bring listeners more music to enable them to make their own judgement."

Yang's escape from her artistic cul-de-sac came in 1996 when she met famed Japanese composer Minoru Miki, who was in Beijing to conduct an Orchestra Asia performance.

Role Model

"Miki was the first to apply traditional Japanese instruments to western classical music. I was overwhelmed by the experience, and surprised to find how Japanese traditional music could be used in a western symphony. Miki said he found me very different from other Chinese players. He asked whether I lived in China, and said he found my playing more personal and colorful than he expected from a Chinese mainland musician.

"I told him all about my feelings, and that I wanted to write and play my own music. He agreed to teach me, and since then I have made frequent trips to Japan. My communication and cooperation with Miki has been inspirational. Every concert has been a success, even when I was only accompanying a symphony orchestra. A good example was when I had to take five curtain calls with him and Orchestra Asia at the St. Louis Opera Center after performing Miki's operatic version of The Tale of Genji.

"The two of us often give lectures in Japan. I play the pipa while Miki explains things to the audience. He is always my role model. He is more than 70 years old and he keeps working every day."