Into the Music: Silk on Wood · Starts Saturday 9 August 2008
Silk on Wood is a loosely fashioned series of three radio features exploring ancient musical traditions of China and Tibet which have been kept alive in the modern world.
Through the efforts of composers, performers, and sound recordists, folk traditions tied to rural life and ritual are captured and given new life in archival projects and multimedia orchestral performances; and the delicate, refined art of the scholar musician endures and embraces contemporary sounds.
This site features audio, video and image galleries, as well as further information and transcripts.
Tan Dun - Undying Sound · Saturday 9 August 2008
In tune with the Beijing Olympics, we explore the work of one of China’s most successful artistic exports, composer Tan Dun. Join Tan Dun and Australian percussionist Rebecca Lagos in a spirited excursion through his music, which blends Western classical traditions with ethnic Chinese folk music to create new music for this millennium. Find out more...
The Song Catchers – Recording the Disappearing Songs of Tibet · Saturday 16 August 2008
A fascinating feature recorded in China about a heart warming recording project to preserve the rare and beautiful traditional songs of Tibet, which are vanishing in the process of modernisation. Songs for building traditional houses and milking songs are fading from collective memory. Tibetan students learning English at Qinghai Normal University, Xining, in China’s far north-west have become involved in The Plateau Music Project, which was started by Australian ethno-musicologist Gerald Roche as part of the program, and are searching far and wide to find those in their home villages and towns who remember and sing the songs by heart.
The students participate in the Plateau Music Project to record the traditional music and to digitise it in an archive for the future. They record the music, transcribe the lyrics and even post videos of performances on the internet to keep the music alive. The project has secured new equipment, an office and even a full-time staff member, to help preserve this fascinating music. Find out more...
Silk on Wood · Saturday 23 August 2008
Read Transcript Listen Now View image gallery Watch video
A music feature that explores the cultural milieu surrounding the Qin with silk strings, a 3,000-year-old, seven-stringed, fret-less Chinese zither. Silk on Wood focuses on a small group of musician scholars living in Hong Kong, dedicated to maintaining the Qin tradition.
Listeners are afforded the rare privilege of entering the very private world of the only surviving Silk String Qin society, to witness the dedication and resilience of this reclusive community in the face of the behemoth that is New China. Find out more...