She's performed at the White House and at the Olympics. She's toured with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and composer Philip Glass, sold out concert halls alongside the Kronos Quartet and even been nominated for a Grammy.
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Chinese-born pipa player Wu Man has played for and among the elite in the classical music world, but her preferred venue is nothing so grandiose: Man likes to perform at elementary schools.
"I love playing for kids. Really, it's one of my favorite things," Man said in a telephone interview from her home in San Diego. "When I walk out on stage with this ancient Chinese instrument, the kids have this look on their faces like they have no idea what to expect. ... But then when I start playing it, they get this expression of such naked joy and wonder.
"Children are our future. I honestly believe that. And that feeling of me being able to touch their hearts is better than anything else."
Man, a native of Hangzhou, China (southwest of Shanghai), will perform on her signature instrument Sunday, Feb. 14, at Elizabethtown College's Leffler Chapel & Performance Center as part of Gretna Music's winter session.
Played in China for more than two millennia, the pear-shaped pipa has four strings for plucking and is similar to a Western lute, making a sound that ninth-century Chinese poet Bai Juyi compared to, among other things, pearls falling on a jade plate.
A musical prodigy, Wu Man left Hangzhou to attend the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the school's first recipient of a master's degree in pipa. While in Beijing, Man took first prize in the prestigious First National Music Performance Competition. That honor gave Wu Man the level of recognition she needed to leave China and perform abroad.
"I remember that Seiji Ozawa [the Japanese conductor (born in China) and former music director of Boston Symphony Orchestra] came to one of our classes in Beijing, and I was just entranced with what he was doing with Western-style symphonies. I wanted to do something similar, but for that, I knew I would have to leave China," she said.
Moving to New England in 1990, Man worked on her English skills before taking an apartment in New York. She eventually chose to settle in Boston. Since then, she has toured relentlessly to make a name for herself in the classical music world, performing with major symphonies in Chicago, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Paris and Stuttgart, Germany.
Just as the 2004 Olympics were revving up in Athens, Greece, Man got a surprise call from composer Philip Glass, who is known for his minimalist, recursive classical works. Glass wanted her to be part of the ensemble for a seven-movement piece he wrote for the Olympics titled "Orion." It comprised music from the indigenous traditions of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Gambia, Greece and India.
"We tried it out in Mexico City first as a kind of practice before we brought it to the Olympics, and even back then, when it was still rough, people fell in love with it," she said. "It's a really beautiful work. Listening to it, you can hear Philip's voice very clearly, but it's also a work composed strictly in the ancient Chinese tradition."
Ancient Chinese traditions are of particular interest to another high-profile artist with whom Man collaborates: Yo-Yo Ma.
Man has spent the past 10 years involved in Ma's Silk Road Project, which explores the music of cultures along the famous trade route linking Europe and Asia.
"The idea is to bring together different musical roots," Man said. "The project works with composers who have been commissioned to do new pieces, but also interprets the music of cultures along the Silk Road, such as those in Eastern Europe, China, Turkey and India."
Man regularly performs with the Kronos Quartet, one of the most consistently lauded string quartets in the world, and will be coming to Elizabethtown fresh from a date with Kronos in College Park, Md.
In April, she rejoins the Silk Road Ensemble as it tours Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Macao. In May, Man returns to Russia for a series of concerts with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists, with whom she was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009 for best small ensemble performance for a recording of Chinese composer Tan Dun's Pipa Concerto.
But when she takes the stage in E-town, she'll be flying solo.
"I'm very excited about the upcoming show at Elizabethtown College because playing the pipa solo is always a challenge. You know, it's not like playing with the Silk Road folks, where a lot of different instruments are being blended together. When you're out there for this kind of concert, you're out there on your own," she said.
Though she's still deciding which works to include in the program, she said they will be a blend of ancient Chinese songs and contemporary works.
"My goal is to give people a nice variety of sound and style. What I want to do with my pipa ... is take the audience on a journey, one that stretches from 2,000 years ago to what's going on in the 21st century."
Wu Man will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14, at Leffler Chapel & Performance Center on the campus of Elizabethtown College. For ticket information, visit gretnamusic.org or call 361-1508.
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