Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator and composer who gives her lute-like instrument—which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Wu Man has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists. Read more at wumanpipa.org

Wu Man is artistic advisor to the US-China Music Institute, offering master classes in Chinese music and improvisation at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. For the China Now Music Festival, she has adapted a Beethoven piece originally written for mandolin and harpsichord, which she will play on the pipa with harp accompaniment during the ‘Beethoven Made in China’ program on December 13.