Chinese instruments taught for the first time
Traditional Chinese instruments will be taught for the very first time at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University this year.
Traditional Chinese instruments will be taught for the very first time at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University this year.
Facilitated by the Confucius Institute at Victoria University, the music school acquired a collection of Chinese instruments in 2016, made possible by the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) in Beijing with the assistance of Victoria University’s partner, Xiamen University in Wellington’s sister city of Xiamen. The string (guzheng, guqin, pipa) and percussion instruments are the latest in the growing family of instruments in the NZSM Asia-Pacific collection, comprising Māori, Pasifika, Indonesian, Thai and now Chinese instruments.
The guzheng and erhu instruments in the Chinese collection will be taught by two Chinese musicians who are the Confucius Institute’s Mandarin Language Assistants, Jade Wang Yuxiao on guzheng and Jessica Zhang Jingwen on erhu. The courses will be open to anyone, and will consist of individual lessons with a teacher. The courses may be taken by music students as part of their degree, or by non-students as general interest papers. Students do not have to have their own instruments, and no musical background or previous knowledge of Chinese music is required. The courses will be taught in English.
Kimberly Cannady, Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the New Zealand School of Music, says it’s a great opportunity for people to study the erhu or the guzheng with musicians directly from China. Students from across the school of music and others interested in Chinese music, Asian languages and cultures, and anyone else curious about learning something new are welcome in the course.
For anyone who is interested in these courses, which begin in Trimester One in 2017, please contact kimberly.cannady@vuw.ac.nz for more info.