Friday, September 26, 2008

Wang Fei (musician)

Wang Fei is a musician of descent. She specialises in traditional Chinese musical instruments such as the guqin and the guzheng. Her teacher of the guqin is mainly Li Xiangting of the Central Conservatory of Music since 1981. She has two sisters, one of whom resides in China and one resides predominantly in the United States.

She now resides in America, where she continues to promote qin culture. She is the founder of the North American Guqin Association, based in the SF Bay Area; and co-founder of Chinese Culture Net. She is also a council member of the China Guqin Committee. She is a published writer and an international award winner digital artist.

Biography


Wang Fei started her guqin studies in 1981 with Prof. Li Xiangting. He soon regards her as his most promising student out of his 300 or so students worldwide. She gradually developed a high understanding of qin music throughout her study and has done numerous research on it. She also mastered many technically difficult melodies, including ''Youlan'' and ''Guangling San''.

She has given a number of performances and concerts throughout the world, especially in China, the United States, and Japan. She also participated in many seminars, conferences and lectures in China. She has been written about and interviewed by over a hundred journalists in the media in China, Japan, and the United States. Her biographical profile was included in the Chinese version of ''World Who's Who'' in 1998 and ''World Class Chinese Intellectuals in the Musical And Artistic Fields'', vol. 5.

As well as being a high-class performer of the guqin, she also promotes its culture by organising qin related events, such as conferences and yajis. She has often held speeches, seminars, lectures workshops and demonstrations at various academic establishments as well as the public. She has also written many articles as an introduction to the qin for many people. When she was in Beijing, she and her "Three Sisters of Beijing Literature and Art Studio" did much to promote the qin in China. Her studio also supports other qin-related organisations.

She then moved to the United States, where she began to use technology to promote and expand the interest of the qin. In particular, she was the first graduate in Multimedia Studies from China at ; which she used her knowledge to establish an online guqin community, the North American Guqin Association , in 1997. Thousands of people around the world have contacted her through her work. In 2002, she organised the first ever online guqin gathering.

Artistic achievements


Wang Fei has won a number of awards throughout her professional career, including first place in the Chinese College Student Art Contest in 1989. As she has traveled to many places promoting the guqin, she was given many honorary awards, including being made Honorary Citizen of the City of Baltimore, Maryland in 1993, and in 1995 she was made a Daughter of the City of Maoka, Japan.

Other artistic activities


Wang Fei is also a well-known author. She and her two sisters are collectively known as the "Chinese ". Their book ''Three Sisters' Skies and Dreams'' was a bestseller in Beijing in 1997. The book ''The Story of the Chinese Bronte Sisters'' , written by their mother, included their stories, articles, photos, and music CDs. The first edition sold 30,000 copies in the first month. It was the No. 4 bestseller in the Beijing Book Exposition in January 2002 and has broken all sales records for the China City Publishing House.

Wang Fei also plays the guzheng and does Chinese painting.

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