Sleeping Lotus
Sleeping Lotus
|||Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Sleeping Lotus contains eleven serene guqin and xiao improvisational tracks. These tracks blossom like musical haiku, with each note capturing a world of emotion, each song bringing deep peace. The guqin and xiao, or seven-stringed zither and bamboo flute dating back more than 3,000 years to the origins of Chinese music, are said to be the perfect complement to each other, as is Sleeping Lotus the perfect complement to an interlude of relaxing, meditating, or dreaming.
This is the first recording of improvisational guqin music (pronounced Goo Chin) ever made in the West. Improvisational guqin music - once an important part of guqin playing - died out over 1000 years ago. Professor Li has rescued this lost art and is one of the few people to improvise on the guqin, and certainly the only master player to do so. With the exception of two recordings by Professor Li in China there has never been a full CD of improvisational Guqin.
Review
A delicate work. The gentle vibe that runs throughout makes this record a very special listening experience. -- Chris Spector, Mid-West Record Recap
Li has rescued the lost art and is one of the very few people to improvise on the guqin. -- Richard Giles, Nexus Magazine
Listening to the notes produced by these instruments, one cannot help but feeling peace and calm. -- Marcella Cirignola, Amazing Sounds
This CD is the sound of the Tao Teh Ching translated into music. -- Laura Silvestri, Innerchange Magazine
About the Artist
Professor Li Xiangting (pronounced Lee Shawn Ting) is acknowledged as one the most important guqin players of his generation and is a distinguished Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing. Professor Li started learning the guqin under the tutelage of Zha Fuxi in 1952. In 1958, he gained entry into the Central Conservatory of Music. He graduated in 1963, began teaching, and has since taught many of the important performers of the next generation of guqin players.
In 1989, he accepted a fellowship to Cambridge University, London, to research guqin improvisation, and lectured on guqin as a visiting fellow at the Music Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He returned to China in 1994 and resumed teaching at the Central Conservatory of Music.
Currently, he is a Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music and Vice-President of the Beijing Guqin Research Association.
Since 1963, more than four hundred students from China and overseas have studied guqin under Professor Li Xiangting. Besides performing in China, Li Xiangting has also staged over fifty recitals in many countries including the USA, England, Germany, Japan, Australia, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and New Zealand, his most recent performance being at San FranciscoÂs Asian Art Museum in February 2005.