This yaji was to welcome Mrs. Yanyan Zhu 朱彥晏 from Toronto Guqin Society along with her husband and daughters. They first visited the Zhong Dao Tang 中道堂 at Yuni's and then traveled to Manhattan and New Jersey.    Confucius once said: 有朋自遠方來 不亦樂乎 (“How happy we are, To meet friends from afar”), we were very happy to meet Yan Yan and she also wanted to meet the qin friends from New York. Therefore, Peiyou and Stephen hosted a guqin yaji on Aug 7th.

 

Yanyan Zhu

http://www.facebook.com/groups/115706828451841/

The meeting started with Yanyan's singing in Chinese opera style of Song dynasty poem "Ge Xi Mei Ling 鬲溪梅令" by Jiang Kuei 姜夔 who wrote the poem and the original melody. Yanyan then played her improvisation of this piece on guqin (Peiyou's silk string qin). Her singing and playing can be heard at: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8429455/Audio/2011NYQSYajiGexiMeiLing.mp3  

 

 

Yanyan played Pingsha Luoyan 平沙落雁 and O Lu Wang Ji 歐鷺忘機 then, Jiu Kuang 酒狂.

(The video of Jiu Kuang playing can be seen at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150260033994895&comments. A sound recording of Yanyan's Jiu Kuang and her talks about this piece can be heard at  http://www.peiyouqin.com/sounds/01-DR-consolidated-110810_1232.mp3 . Yanyan's Jiu Kuang has her own style which is not like the Jiu Kuang most of the qin players had played. 

Her Pingsha Luoyan 平沙落雁 sound  recording: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8429455/Audio/2011NYQSYajiPingsha.mp3

Her O Lu Wang Ji 歐鷺忘機 sound recording:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8429455/Audio/2011NYQSYajiOuluWangji.mp3

 

Matthew’s Talk

After that, Matthew talked about one of his collection of Chinese calligraphy. 

   

The photo above is Matthew's collection-- written by Zeng Xi 曾熙 (1861-1930) who was one of Zhang Daqian's 張大千 (1899 -1983) teacher. Behind is Pu Ru's 溥心畬 (1896-1963) calligraphy from Peiyou's family heritage.

 

The video of Matthew's talk:  http://youtu.be/DrnkD0m6gks

 

We want to give a big thanks to Matthew's wife Jeanette who made these two delicious dishes, mushroom balls and cheese cakes. I have to take photos before they disappear... :) 

 

 

 

Playing

After a break for refreshment, Shih-hua and Sam played Guanshan Yue 關山月 together. 

 

The video of their playing and Shih-hua's singing is at

http://youtu.be/8g4gBZpq9FM.  

 

Jennie then played Lu Ming 鹿鳴. 

 

After she played, Yuni asked about this piece. Jennie and Yanyan both helped to explain to Yuni that it is like those deer play around Yuni's home and Yanyan family, as special guests of Yuni, came to visit. They played qin music at Zhong Dao Tang as the ancient poem described exactly: 呦呦鹿鳴，食野之苹。我有嘉賓，鼓瑟吹笙...

 

And Shih-hua also explained that this poem is from 詩經小雅, The Xiao Ya of [The Book of Songs]or [the Book of Odes]. The Book of Odes is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs. It contains three categories: Feng 風 (folk songs), Ya 雅 (Da Ya 大雅 and Xiao Ya 小雅 which many of the poems here were taken from folk songs and rewritten to upgrade to higher level for official use), Song 頌(Ceremony songs). 

 

Peiyou and Jennie played Liang Xiao Yin 良宵引 together. 

Yuni then played Yi Gu Ren 憶故人.

 

Sam then played Wen Wang Cao 文王操 on his metal string qin that he ordered from eBay. Sam has been learning guqin with Shih-hua for 9 months so far. To listen, http://www.peiyouqin.com/sounds/01-110809_1859.mp3.   (Sam is also a Taiji master, to see his Taiji video go to: http://youtu.be/t0lsPJ1YELQ.)

 

Peiyou played Yu Qiao Wen Da 漁樵問答.

 

The yaji ended around 8:30pm.

 

-- Peiyou Chang