Carleton College’s renowned Chinese Music Ensemble will perform on Sunday, Feb. 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall. This event is free and open to the public.
The ensemble, formed in 2004, consists of Carleton students playing traditional Chinese instruments. It has performed at numerous venues throughtout southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities. This year, members include senior Kim Bauer (Olympia, Wash.), senior Guanlu Guan (Nanjing, China), sophomore Johanna Olsen (Golden Valley, Minn.), visiting instructor in Chinese Yuedong Merritt (Northfield), first-year student Xiaodi Wang (Lianyungang, China) and sophomore Bill Xu (Zhengzhou, China) on the erhu; first-year student Wenyue Wu (Hangzhou, China) on the guzheng; junior Yawen Chen (Nanjing, China) on the dizi; sophomore Ming Sheng Wang (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada) on the sanxian; and senior Joe Concannon (Pleasant Prairie, Wis.) on the hulusi.
Ensemble director Gao Hong is the music department’s Performance Activities Coordinator as well as a lecturer in Chinese musical instruments at Carleton. She is a graduate of China’s premier music school, the Central Conservatory of Music, and has received numerous honors and awards for her work as a musician as well as several commissions as a composer. Hong, whose instrument of choice is the pipa, or pear-shaped lute, has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, including with such groups as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Heidelberg Philharmonic and the (San Francisco) Women’s Philharmonic.
For more information about this event, including disability accommodations, contact the Carleton College Department of Music at (507) 222-4347. The Carleton College Concert Hall is located on First and Winona Streets South in Northfield.