Kuku Music

Chinese Art Music has a long history, reaching back more then 3000 years. The world wide oldest perfectly preserved instrument is a set of bells of an incredible size (the whole set is about 12 meters wide!), produced more then 2500 years ago. The music for the Chinese zither guqin is preserved in tablatures dating back more then 1000 years. 12-tone-system and chromatic tuning existed 1000 years before being developed in Europe. During many dynasties in China there existed special ministries for music, to administrate styles and ensembles throughout this giant empire.

But what has happened to Chinese Art Music today? An everlasting repetition of a pretty small repertoire, highly skilled musicians with little creativity, big "traditional orchestras" copying Western ensemble structures in a very questionable way, and still only very view new compositions that develop on the base of Chinese tradition in a creative and modern way. Music-shows feature a singing style that lost any cultural roots and identity, and an environment for concerts of any kind of New Art Music hardly exists.

Facing this situation the KuKu-Music-people are doing quite some pioneering with their creations of music in China. In contrast to most Chinese music, which on the one hand still is very local in musical style or on the other hand has lost all cultural identity, the KuKu-productions feature a global musical language, which is yet clearly rooted in Chinese music tradition. That makes these productions not only an important input for the development in China, but also gives them the position to represent China in other cultures in a contemporary and understandable way.