Breaking boundaries in music making to explore the soundscapes of Chinese and Western music.

The Bard East/West Ensemble (BE/WE) is a dynamic and original music group that brings together the essence of Chinese and Western soundscapes to create a new model of cross-cultural performance.  The ensemble’s founder and artistic director, Jindong Cai, has devoted his career as an orchestra conductor and educator to advocate for the development of Chinese music in the West. BE/WE appeared at the renowned Kennedy Center in 2022, at Jazz at Lincoln Center 2023, and at Carnegie Hall in 2024. They have performed for the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. and plan to tour the East Coast and China in 2025. The group has collaborated with world-class solo artists including winds virtuoso Guo Yazhi, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and the guitar and guzheng combo Duo Chinoiserie.

The ensemble aims to combine Eastern and Western musical traditions, and is committed to performing arrangements and original works with unique instrumentation, thereby creating a new realm of musical expression. The core members of the orchestra are composed of a Western string quintet and seven Chinese instruments including dizi, erhu, pipa, ruan, suona, guzheng and sheng, as well as Chinese and Western percussionists.

巴德东西乐团是一支极富活力、聚中西乐器之精华、创造跨文化表演新模式的原创音乐团体，由指挥家蔡金冬发起成立并担任艺术总监。曾于2022年在著名的华盛顿肯尼迪艺术中心亮相，并于 2023 年登上林肯中心的舞台，合作过的世界级独奏艺术家包括吹管大师郭雅志、琵琶大师吴蛮。该乐团旨在结合东方与西方的乐器配置和音乐传统，致力于演奏具有独特乐器编制的改编和原创作品，从而创造一个新的音乐表达领域。乐团核心成员由西乐的弦乐五重奏和七件中国乐器笛子、二胡、琵琶、阮、唢呐、古筝、笙，再加上中西打击乐手等15位音乐家组成。