WU Wei



Wu Wei, born 1970 in the Southeast-China Province of Jiangsu, started to be taught the Chinese violin Erhu at the age of five.

At 15 he begins his study of the mouth-organ Sheng at the Art-Academy of Nanjing. From 1989 to 1993 he graduated as master-student of this instrument at the internationally renowned Music-Conservatory of Shanghai. Until then he had won the most prestigious national and international competitions for traditional Chinese music.

1993 the Sheng-Soloist Wu Wei appears in the internationally famous orchestra of classical Chinese music Shanghai; his performances are reproduced in countless CD-recordings. Concert-tours through China, Japan, USA and Europe opened his ear for non-Chinese music-traditions. His first projects with European musicians in Shanghai acquainted him with the practice of Jazz und New Music.

In 1995 Wu Wei arrived at Academy of Music Hans Eisler Berlin, Germany, on an Artist-scholarship of the DAAD, where he broadened his music-horizon by studying Western Jazz-traditions and cooperating with musicians of various cultures and musical styles. In 1999 he won a scholarship of the Berlin Senat. From 1998 to 2000 he received a scholarship of the F.N.S.. In 1996 and in 2002 he won first price in the music-competitions „Musica Vitale" in Germany.

Since 1993 Wu Wei appears as Soloist on the Sheng with different ensembles and orchestras, in countless concerts and recitals and in many important festivals in Germany and internationally, e.g. Music Festival Osaka, Japan 1992; Jazz-festival Beijing, China, 1994; First International Mundharmonika Festival, Berlin 1996; Music Festival San Francisco, USA, 1996 and 2000;Organ Festival,Rom,Italy; Dance and Folk Festival 1996,1998,1999 and 2002; Rudolstadt, Sfinks Festival, Belgium, 1999; World Music Festival, Munich 2000; Folk-festival in Litomice, Czench 2002; 3.World-music-festival Different Colours, Frankfurt/Main, 2000; Expo 2000 Hanover; 50 Festspiele Europaosche Wochen Passau,2002; Festwochen Berlin, 2002; Total Music Meeting 2002, Berlin; Dresdener Tage der Zeitgenoesischen Musik 2002;19 th Music meeting 2003, Nijmegen,Holland;Asien Festival 2003,Esbjerg,Denmark ;Free music Festival 2003,Antwerpen, Belgium; Festival"Recherche musique nouvelle" 2003,Forbach,France; Folk festival 2003,Pecs,Hungary etc..

Important premieres: in 2002 the concert for Sheng and chamber orchestra of Helmut Zapf and in 2003 concert for Sheng and orchestra of Enjott Schneider.

Wu Wei performed as guest-soloist among others with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Kent Nagano and the New Philharmony Westfalen under GMD Samuel Bächli; the Atlas Ensemble Holland, the Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam, the Ensemble "Musica Viva" Dresden; the Ensemble MUSICA TEMPORALE Dresden,the Ensemble On_line Wien; the Ensemble N_Er etc.

He carries through a great number of projects with contemporary and improvised music and with his own compositions. He develops a new sound-language for Chinese instruments and opens new dimensions in the New Music. From 1998 to 2003 he took part in more than 30 premieres of contemporary compositions with, e.g. John Cage, Enjott Schneider, Helmut Zapf, Jörg Widmann, Chico Mello, Gunter Baby Sommer, Fabio Nieder, Jörg Herchet, Daniel Ott, Xiao Yongchen, Jörg Herchet, Wolfgang Heisig, Volk Staub, Christian Utz etc.

Wu Wei originates from the Chinese classical music, but he is competent in modern and improvised music, for Jazz-influenced music, New Music, Minimal Music etc. For years he is in search of his own musical language. He experiments on his three-thousand-years-old, Chinese instrument, in order to find hidden sounds and tries to create new sound-worlds for the New Music with his own musical expressions and sound-colours; he uses tabus of the classical Chinese music and enhances contemporary structures of musical ideas. He also created new musical dimensions for the traditional, Chinese instrumental-music.