REVIEW: Easy & West Concert – Holy Trinity Church

Zhou Fen                 Guo Xinyu     

On Friday evening, February 13, at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Launceston, Zhou Fen and Guo Xinyu presented a delightful concert of Chinese and Western European music to celebrate our cultural diversity and the onset of the Chinese new year (Year of the Goat).

Zhou Fen opened the concert with two solo pieces for pipa: one from the early Tang Dynasty (7^th c) and one from the 20^th c, drawing on traditional music. Her playing is lyrical, expressive and powerful. Thoroughly enjoyable.

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese instrument, sometimes called the Chinese lute because it is plucked (with fingerpicks) and has frets.  The earliest mention of the pipa in Chinese texts appeared in the late Han Dynasty around the 2^nd century of the Christian Era. It has a shallow pear-shaped body, a large peg box, and frets ranging from 12 for the lowest string to 26 for the highest. The fret structure facilitates various pitch-bending techniques, enhancing its expressivity.

Zhou Fen was joined by Guo Xinyu for the next two pieces which were based on traditional folk songs. Their arrangements paired the pipa and Western violin in delightful dialogue. For this listener, the duets between the two were the highlight of the concert, and the epitome of the East and West theme.

Guo Xinyu then played from the Western classical violin repertoire, solidly supported by Peter Schultz on electric piano. Her masterful technique and deep, rich tone (especially on the tango, Por Una Cavesa by Gardel) truly served Monti’s Csardash  and Kreisler’s Liebesleid well. 

Masterful technique was equally evident in Zhou Fen’s pipa performance. Her final number, Ambush from Ten Sides, a traditional piece (what a tradition!) demonstrated a remarkable range of sounds and effects, truly conveying a battle.

Greg Parkinson compered the program, providing us with brief but enlightening information about the performers and each work (some of which is blatantly copied in this review). Holy Trinity is an ideal venue for an intimate, elegant concert such as this one, acoustically warm and clear. At the scrumptious supper afterwards, some debated whether the pipa really needed amplification. It is a soft and shallow-bodied instrument, so perhaps it did. I suspect there are timbral subtleties we might not have heard otherwise. It would be worth exploring ways to amplify it more subtly to blend with the existing acoustic ambience of the space. I mention this, because I truly hope Zhou Fen and Guo Xinyu will return for future performances, which any of you gentle readers who were not at this one should now feel compelled to attend!

Karlin Love