NAGA Cultural Heritage Day Celebration Event

June 10th,2006

Earlier this year, the China State Council (China's Cabinet) designated the second Saturday of June as Cultural Heritage Day to boost public awareness of heritage protection in China. This day has been set aside to highlight the preservation of Chinese history, artifacts, and culture (see http://english.people.com.cn/200605/09/eng20060509_264024.html). As most of you are aware, the guqin was awarded the status of ˇ°Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanityˇ± by UNESCO in 2003, respectively. NAGA is encouraging its membership worldwide to spread the news about this historic day. We suggest that members organize a local event, email friends, host a gathering, or simply set aside time to play the qin. Let us know what you are planning for that day. One person or group's creative idea may inspire another to do the same. Here in Northern California we will celebrate this first ever Cultural Heritage Day with a presentation on the guqin given by NAGA director Wang Fei. A yaji elegant gathering will follow.

NAGA is doing its best to invite talented guests to join our monthly yajis to give talks. At this yaji we will have the honor of having author Annie Wang as our keynote speaker. She will talk about life in a changing China and read from her book The People's Republic of Desire. Wang Fei will provide accompaniment for this reading with a modern style guqin improvisation. Annie is one of the few Chinese born authors who write and get published in English. She has written over 10 books in Chinese and 2 books in English. She is also a sister of NAGA director Wang Fei. For more details about Annie Wang and her new book signing tour, please visit her web site at http://www.anniewang.com .

A report on NAGA's last event is available online at http://www.chineseculture.net/guqin/newsletter.html

We may continue with our creation of English lyrics for qin songs. PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN GUQIN AND TABLE for group practice. We encourage members to join in the practice sessions by playing the qin, singing, or giving us feedback on our ever evolving English versions.

Let's relax and get together with qin friends, to play the qin, chat about the qin , meet qin friends face to face instead of online, listen to qin music by different players, probably from different teachers or schools, play instruments made by various qin makers, and exchange information on the qin .

The qin gathering is open to anyone interested in guqin music. Players of other instruments are especially welcome. If you plan to attend or play something, please sign up and submit your program by clicking http://www.chineseculture.net/guqin/byajilist.html. Letting us know in advance gives you priority for inclusion into the event schedule, and time for solos and duets will be particularly limited at this event because of the Cultural Heritage Day celebration.

Time: 2:00 pm, Saturday, June 10th

Place: Union City Library

Union City Library

34007 Alvarado-Niles Road
Union City, CA

For directions: For directions click here

At 5:15 after the yaji we will gather for dinner. Place TBA. Please rsvp to Fred.

If you have any questions, please contact Fred Pohlmann at 831-338-2488 or email him at pohlmann@guqin.org.

North American Guqin Association

http://www.guqin.org/