Artists
who's who and who's doing what?Seidenstrasse / Silk road
line up
- Benjamin Leuschner (Frame drum, marimbaphone, Chinese drum, other perc)
- Chanyuan Zhao (Guzheng, vocals)
- country:Germany
- style(s):Asian Contemporary
- label:not signed
- type:Band
- gender:male, female
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
The long journey from the Middle Kingdom to the regions of origin in the Occident is lined with secrets, legends and stories. In the duo Seidenstrasse two cultures meet like on a traditional trade route with Chanyuan Zhao on the guzheng (Chinese curved-board zither) und Benjamin Leuschner on percussion. By exchanging traditional sounds and rhythmic samples the two musicians have found their own musical style and are therefore creating a new bridge between Asia and Europe.
The focal points of the joint journey are traditional Chinese music in new arrangements, own compositions and improvisations as well as the interpretation of traditional and new music. Maximum virtuosity is combined here with atmospherically close sound formations. The interaction of Chanyuan and Benjamin therefore gives rise to musical pictures of touching poetic delicacy as well as powerful passages which put the audience in the spell of an exotic and remote world.
The curved-board zither guzheng is one of the oldest traditional string instruments in Chinese music. Its sound is extremely multi-faceted from tender and reflective to powerful and assertive. The mallet instruments (including the marimbaphone) and the whole range of percussion instruments side with the guzheng as a harmonic complement with tension-filled contrasts.
"An expressive symbiosis between Chinese art music and classic occidental percussion sounds which establishes a new world music direction."
(International jury of the "creole NRW 2008 Prize for World Music")
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