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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

Wu Man and Ancient Chinese Bluegrass

October 24, 2009 by Scott Timberg


THIS may sound crazy, but this chick kicks ass! if you doubt me, check this out. or consider the fact that avant-jazz madman henry threadgill caught a gig of wu man’s back in the early ’90s, soon after she’d arrived in the states from china, and asked her to play on his next record.

today i have a piece in the LATimes on wu, who plays the pipa, a two-thousand-year-old string instrument, a sort of mandolin/banjo, with amazingly contrasting styles. that is, it can be the most lyrical as well as the harshest of lutes.
her admirers include yo-yo ma, philip glass and the kronos quartet, with whom she’s about to debut a new piece in new york.
wu plays on tuesday as part of an important festival of chinese music put on by both carnegie hall and the philharmonic society of orange county. she’s playing not western classical or sacred chinese music, but as part of rustic “family bands” she has brought over from china.
dean corey, the society’s southern-bred boss, remembers working in appalachia and seeing wild family groups come out of the woods to make bluegrass. “that’s basically what this is,” he says.
Photo credit: wumanpipa.org

Filed Under: china, classical music, henry threadgill, kronos quartet, orange co, wu man

Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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