About the Musicians

By Luo Tong, the China-based producer for the Marketplace China special

Luo Shoucheng, Tu Weigang and Weng Zhenfa are as close to household names as you get in the field of traditional music in China. With a clutch of best-selling albums to their names, these celebrated musicians have played traditional instruments for 40 years or more in the top national orchestras. Last month, we brought the three of them together with some of their musician friends to record Chinese versions of the theme music for Marketplace, Marketplace Money and Marketplace Morning Report.

During two recording sessions in Shanghai's prestigious Radio Tower studios, they laid down 7 tracks, each of which puts a distinctively Chinese twist on our well-known tunes.

All born in the 1940s, our musicians' lives coincided with the end of Nationalist rule in China, "Liberation" by the Communists, and nearly fifty years of political upheaval and remarkable economic growth in Shanghai.

All three musicians retired last year –- which means no more state-backed concerts and no more classes to teach in the Shanghai Music Conservatory. You might expect they would be fading quietly into Shanghai's cultural backwaters.

But these three men, with their ready smiles and wit, have decided to take a gamble. Working with one of China's foremost composers, Chen Dawei (who also adapted the Marketplace themes), they have begun rewriting some of the old folk tunes for their instruments, generating new material that will take Chinese music to new audiences. And they have teamed up with their friend Liu Ying, a virtuoso woodwind performer, to prepare a series of private concerts outside the control of the state.

Their music has already carried them through political revolutions, artistic upheavals and personal trials, including poverty and divorce. This time, they want to make their music the bridge between traditional China, new Shanghai, and the outside world, and one that pushes their own boundaries too.

Music and Video

Go behind the scenes as some of China's best traditional musicians record music for Marketplace's China broadcast. Watch the video in Real format.

Listen to full-length works from the musicians. Choose either Real or MP3 format:
 
Composition 1 (3:49) Real | MP3
Composition 2 (5:54) Real | MP3
Composition 3 (4:36) Real | MP3

Need Realplayer? Download it free here

Slideshow

View a slideshow of photographs from the recording sessions.

Biographies

Luo Shoucheng (60). Born into a poor family in neighbouring Anhui Province, he was one of five children. His father worked as a secretary and struggled to support them. Later, young Shoucheng almost dropped out of Shanghai Music Conservatory because he couldn't afford the daily food bills. On weekends, he practised his dizi (a bamboo flute) in the dorms because he couldn't pay the bus fare home. Still an active teacher, he has led a colourful life and is now married to his fourth wife.

Tu Weigang (62) studied at the Music Conservatory with Luo Shoucheng. He played the pipa (Chinese lute) from a very young age under one of China's greatest ever pipa masters. As well as being a wonderful musician and performer, Weigang is also a masterful storyteller and practical joker, whose joyous spirit has carried the group of friends through some of China's darker periods. His wife and his daughter are also professional pipa players.

Weng Zhenfa (55) took a different musical route from the others. Too poor to pay for lessons, he learned how to play the sheng (Chinese mouth organ) by copying the musicians who played in teahouses. He has gone on to become one of the finest sheng players in the world, and has redesigned the original 17-reed sheng with its limited range of notes. His instrument now has 37 reeds and a range of four octaves, suitable for playing with an orchestra. His daughter, Beibei, is a professional flautist and plays for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The composer, Chen Dawei (64), studied at the Music Conservatory in Shanghai. His mother was an actress, and his father a director, but Dawei's big break came in writing revolutionary opera for Chairman Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. He went on to become the principal composer for Shanghai Film Orchestra, writing much of their repertoire and recording many albums both in China and overseas. He has an eight-year-old son who plays the piano very well.

Their group also includes the following friends and colleagues:

Liu Ying (45), China's best-known player of the suona (a small reed instrument that looks a little like a trumpet). A devout Buddhist, he is also a mischievous partier, who likes nothing better than getting his older friends drunk at their after-concert dinners.

Gong Yi (67), who plays the guqin, an ancient zither, originally the instrument of scholars and emperors. Initially teachers refused to teach him the notoriously difficult instrument. Today, many regard Gong Yi as the best of China's few guqin players.

Stage manager Luo Shouzhu (65), who served in the army in southern Fujian Province for 25 years before returning to Shanghai in the 1980s to lead the Shanghai Film Orchestra. During his time in the army cultural troupe, Luo Shouzhu and his players came under fire several times while performing. Last year he had a stroke and spent several weeks in hospital, before coming out to help set up a recent concert.

These musicians' stories are now the subject of a major new documentary named after one of their signature pieces, "A Farewell Song." The documentary, from Lostpensivos Productions, explores the conception, creation and recording of these delightful musicians' new CD and their preparations for a major concert.

Following these musicians' lives through their music today, "A Farewell Song" looks at the issues they've faced as music makers in communist China and how these have influenced them and their music.

More information on the Lostpensivos documentary.