NAGA February 2006 Yaji Report

On Saturday, February 18th NAGA held its monthly yaji in the van Doorn Room of the Fremont Main Library. With over 20 people in attendance the accommodations were cozy. Once again the first portion of the afternoon was devoted to NAGA's ongoing song project. We practiced and critiqued our already existing English song versions of Zi Yie Wu Ge and Zhang Xiang Si. The most time was devoted to our new draft of Yang Guan San Die. Audience feedback was more extensive than in previous yajis, showing that many got into the spirit of English lyric creation. The only solo of the yaji was a smooth performance of Zi Yie Wu Ge by Wenyu. Monique and James performed an entertaining erhu duet to Ba Yue Gui Hua, which was followed by comments about the cultural significance of the piece by Wang Fei. A quartet of Wenyu and Fred on guqin, Monique on erhu, and Eliot on xiao finished the musical part of the yaji by playing Zi Yie Wu Ge, clearly the piece of choice that afternoon. Eileen and Kai, who had come down from Arcata, CA did a presentation of their recently designed Chinese language instruction software. It's a program for teaching Chinese to children using Chinese character overlays on pictures. For example the Chinese character for dog is superimposed on a picture of a dog. As the dog moves the character moves with it, changing from an ancient form to its contemporary form. The software is creative and visually stunning. An intrigued audience of onlookers gathered around the screen. Both Wenyu and Dr. Tom (with sword) once again presented their taiji forms. This was a spontaneous performance, revealing their true taiji nature, which is to carry the taiji spirit every moment.

Please see the photo album by Michael Cohen at http://hustlepix.com/concerts/naga_yaji_20060218

Program:

Group practice and English lyric creation for Zi Yie Wu Ge, Zhang Xiang Si, and Yang Guan San Die with Wang Fei, Monique Kuo, Kwan Wong, and Fred

Pohlmann on guqin and Wenyu Jiang, Kwan Wong and Wang Fei singing.

Qin solo: Wenyu Jiang performing Zi Yie Wu Ge.

Ensembles: Monique Kuo and James Byfield on erhu performing Ba Yue Gui Hua;

Monique Kuo on erhu, Eliot Greenleaf on xiao, and Wenyu Jiang and Fred

Pohlmann on guqin performing Zi Yie Wu Ge.

Software demo: Eileen Moy and Kai Chu.

Taiji: Wenyu Jiang

Dr. Sanford Tom – taiji sword.

Attendees:

Reporter: Fred Pohlmann

Editor : Julian Joseph

North American Guqin Association

http://www.guqin.org