Chinese Music

Chinese Music posts cover instruments, classical tradition and the modern scene. Articles look at the guqin and its quiet seven-string sound, the pipa lute, the erhu fiddle, the dizi bamboo flute, and the ensemble pieces that show up at temple festivals. There are also notes on Cantopop from Hong Kong, the long career of Teresa Teng, the rise of mainland indie venues in Beijing and Chengdu, and why traditional opera from Beijing and Sichuan is still hard for outsiders to follow without a libretto. The category is broad on purpose.