As a Chinese who has already spent over 20 years of my life in
China, I still believe a deep understanding of the vast panorama of
Chinese Culture is difficult to acquire, even if one is born to it.
My interests resemble that of the butterfly, pausing on things that
atttact, from oriental cherry to jasmine tea, from mandarine ducks
to Chinese painting, and
in this way I have found many facets of my motherland to be
absolutely beautiful. As I try to bring ancient Chinese music into
the 21st century with a fascinating blend of traditional
instruments and modern technology, I decided to make a
non-traditional approach to it. I play off Chinese music traditions
against Western ones, for example: We use drums of Beijing Opera as
the rhythm part of the dancing music. And the lyrics, I express
English in a Chinese way, because what I really want to emphasize
is the contrasts between the two different languages, but not the
grammar. Shadow: Go East is the first of a serial CDs
which will include two more, Shadow: See East and
Shadow: Stay East. This project represents an epic musical
journey by my producer Sawyer and I through folk music and art of
China. We hope these records willl help both Eastern and Western
listeners visualize these reflections of places far away and times
long gone, and we also hope our dedicated research of our music and
our culture will widen today's Silk Road between east and
West.
