Shao Rong - Orchid (CD 2000 Pacific Moon) Pipa (Chinese Lute) Brand NEW

Experience the lovely resonance of the pipa (Chinese lute) masterfully performed by virtuoso, Shao Rong. The shimmering, melancholy melodies evoke a calm and peaceful mood, and lead you to dream of foreign and exotic lands.

To enhance your enjoyment of the music, incense sticks are included in the spine of the CD jewel case.

The pipa is a four-stringed lute that immediately signals its Asian origins with microtonal scales and note bends. Shao Rong, a Chinese musician living in Japan, makes the most of these characteristics on Orchid. Born in Shanghai, China, Rong is a classically trained musician whose forte has been folk music and new classical music, including the compositions of Tan Dun. On Orchid, producer Seiichi Kyoda places Rong in a more contemporary music setting. A member of the world fusion group Uttara-Kuru, Kyoda wrote all the music and arrangements on Orchid, and he shows a penchant for light melodies and breezy arrangements that heighten the pipa's natural tendency toward sweetness, especially when Rong affects a mandolin-like tremelo. Kyoda surrounds her with ghuzeng zithers, tizi, and shakuhachi flutes, and the erhu, a Chinese violin played by Jia Peng Fang. Kyoda also works some darker tones on the electro-tabla driven grooves of "Precious Moon," a reconfiguration of a traditional song, and the dynamic "One More Tale." The latter piece centers on a piano ostinato phrase that lays the road for a cinematic journey into the night. --John Diliberto

One of the most pleasant sounds to the ear is a well played pipa, or Chinese lute, a 2000 year old instrument that is just making itself known to the western world, but is well known in the orient.

Shao Rong is considered one of the top musical prodigies in all of China. Playing piano since age 5 and the pipa since age 10, she was one of only 12 students taken into the new music school of the Beijing National Central Music Institute from among the 20,000 who applied.

She has won "The Artistic Excellence Prize" as one of the outstanding artists at the Shanghai Arts Festival. She moved to Japan and enrolled at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where she played pipa and was an actress in Madame Butterfly. She has also performed as a soloist with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and as a soloist in the Sapporo Symphony. She has played at numerous premiers of various Japanese and Chinese artists and is considered a master in her field. She has been part of such groups as the Li-Hua Ensemble and Tempyo-Gafu, an Asian ancient-music ensemble.

Now that you know who Shao Rong is, her CD "Orchid" introduces her to the western world on the Pacific Moon label. She blends her piano skills with her pipa, which is played in the traditional Chinese style. The music is written by Seiichi Kyoda, part of Pacific Moon's recording team which also includes Kazumasa Yoshioka. The only exception is the track "Precious Moon" which is based on an old Chinese classic song "Yue Er Gao".

The music is a blend of east and west, making this easy on the western ear yet just oriental enough to be distinctly different. Each track offers the distinctive flavor of Oriental sounds worked skillfully into western classical music. The best example is "True Love", which gives the feeling of a traditional love ballad but has the touch of cherry blossoms falling in a Japanese garden.

The CD maintains the feel of being uniquely Oriental in flavor, though it crosses the cultural lines back and forth. "The Land of Woods and Waters" is very distinctly Japanese, and we "feel" the traditional quality of the pipa in this track. "Unicorn" gives you the full feeling of the crossover, working a soft jazz twist to the Oriental strains.

The recording quality of this CD is excellent and presents us with a perfect introduction to the beautiful music of Seiichi Kyoda as played by Shao Rong. Even the packaging is original, with sticks of rich Japanese incense included in the spine of the CD case, which allows you to smell the orient as well as enjoy the music, which Pacific Moon executives felt was just as important.

This is a wonderful addition to ambient music coming from Pacific Moon. We welcome more of this caliber of music to this genre. I also hope to hear more from Shao Rong and Seiichi Kyoda.

Track Listing:

1                              Wild Rose
2                              Bamboo Dance
3                              Precious Moon (From 'Yue Er Gao')
4                              True Love
5                              A Day Goes By
6                              The Land Of Woods And Waters
7                              Unicorn
8                              Marketplace
9                              One More Tale
10                           Wild Rose (Reprise)

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