Chai Found Music Workshop: Taiwan’s ‘music discoverers’

In “Silk and bamboo, a musical journey to Taiwan,” Chai Found Music Workshop provided a lively show on the last day of ChamberFest, Ottawa’s internationally renowned festival of chamber music.

The players performed traditional Sizhu music. Each plays one of the most representative instruments of a genre that originated in late nineteenth century teahouses in southern China where musicians would gather in a circle to play and drink tea.

Chai Found Music Workshop was formed 20 years ago by Chen-Ming Huang, artistic director and erhu virtuoso, Hui-Kuan Li, pipa (Chinese lute) player, and Chung-Hsien Wu who plays the di (bamboo flute).

The other members play the guzheng (Chinese zither), ruan (Chinese banjo), and yangqin (Chinese dulcimer).

Sizhu means “silk and bamboo” and represents the stringed and wind instruments played by the group. The lack of percussion in such a group presents a refined sound that is referred to as Chinese chamber music.

While Western music relies on harmony and melody, Chinese music frequently shifts the timbre through an interplay between stringed (silk) and wind (bamboo) instruments, which provides the players ample opportunity for improvisation and artistic expression.

Chen-Ming, president and artistic director of the group, took time to explain to the audience what the instruments are called and gave a short history of each. For example, nowadays the pipa (lute) is held upright on the player’s knee and played with the fingers, but it in ancient times it was held horizontally like a guitar and strummed with a wooden pick. And the ruan (banjo) was named after a famous player who lived hundreds of years ago and it forms the base of the group’s music.

The name of the group is rooted in history.

“In the Zhou Dynasty, a long time ago, there was a job titled Cai Feng Guan. This person visited various cultural events in the local communities to observe and learn about the people’s art forms, songs, and poetry. The first two words of the job title literally translate as ‘picking different elements of folk art.’ The word ‘guan’ means officer,” Chen-Ming said.

The group uses the first two words of the job title for the name of their ensemble, indicating they are music discoverers.

The group collaborates with orchestras and other music ensembles around the world and has commissioned composers to write for them based on traditional Chinese themes such as the five elements (earth, wood, water, metal, and fire).

The group format and sound is essential to their music, and so none are involved in solo projects or have separate CDs.

“I think the traditional ensemble is very beautiful—more than solo,” Chen-Ming said. “Our traditional songs don’t have so many pieces for just a single instrument; mainly the pipa and flute had tunes composed just for them. Solo pieces for erhu have only been composed for the last 100 years.”

He also said that the erhu, his instrument, was used for hundreds of years as an accompaniment to other instruments in an ensemble. As a teenager he wanted to play the flute, as he thought flute players looked “so handsome.” “I didn’t choose to play the erhu. My music teacher thought that I demonstrated good pitch, so he told me to learn the erhu.”

Chai Found Music Workshop is actually composed of three separate touring groups: one that plays traditional and modern music, one that presents creative projects depicting legends, such as Journey to the West, and one that delivers theatrical pieces that may include choreography and even jugglers.

After Ottawa, the group heads west to play at Vancouver’s MusicFest on August 11.