The UW School of Music, Division of Ethnomusicology's annual recital by visiting artists spotlights music of Mongolia and South Africa. Visiting artist Li Bo, a master of the Mongolian morin khuur (a two-stringed horse-head fiddle), presents a virtuoso solo program. Mudzunga Junniah Davhula, visiting artist from the Venda region of South Africa, leads an ensemble of singing, drumming, and reed pipes.
DATE AND TIME
Tuesday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
Meany Theater
TICKETS
$15 ($10 students and seniors)
PROGRAM DETAIL/BACKGROUND
The School of Music's Division of Ethnomusicology has been hosting visiting artists from around the world since the mid-1960s. Each year, the division invites two master musicians to join the faculty as artists in residence. Artists have come from numerous countries in Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe. Li Bo and Mudzunga Junniah Davhula are the division's artists in residence for the 2008-09 academic year.
BIOS
Li Bo, born in Inner Mongolia in 1955, is a distinguished performer on the morin khuur, the horse-head fiddle known in Chinese as matouqin. He has been a professional musician since the age of 15, when he joined a local performing arts troupe and began to travel across the steppes. Later he was a featured soloist with a national troupe, and eventually became the lead morin khuur player with the Inner Mongolian Radio/Television network. In the mid-1980s, he taught in the School of Music at the Inner Mongolia Normal University and, at the same time, studied composition.
Li Bo has lived in Japan since 1995, but he has not lost touch with his roots. In 1996, he founded the Morin Khuur Fund Association and raised $20,000 for the 1st Annual Inner Mongolia Folk Music Competition. In 2001, he donated 140 sheep to people of his native region.
He brings the same spirit to his international performances. When Li Bo came to the United States to perform at the Northwest Folklife Festival in 2004 and 2005, he volunteered to work with students in local primary and secondary schools.
Mudzunga Junniah Davhula is a highly revered performer, teacher, and community leader from the Venda area of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. As a visiting artist at the University of Washington, she has introduced her students to Venda music traditions, focusing on the traditional reed pipe ensemble. This ensemble includes reed pipes, Venda drums, singing, and dancing. Her students have learned to play a variety of instruments and to sing traditional songs in several languages.
Mrs. Davhula's appointment as a visiting artist at the University of Washington School of Music marks the first time that a visiting artist from the Venda culture has been appointed to such a position at a North American university.
Program detail
Li Bo will perform solo works for morin khuur and will also be joined by pianist Sachi Hirakouji, dancer Xiaoyan Ban, and students Erin Maloney, April Nishimura, and Leah Pogwizd for several selections.
Mudzunga Junniah Davhula will perform with a student ensemble.
