Wu Man has also performed as soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras, including the Austrian ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Moscow Soloists, Nashville Symphony, German NDR and RSO Radio Symphony Orchestras, New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.  Her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Great Hall in Moscow, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Opera Bastille, Royal Albert and Royal Festival Halls and the Theatre de la Ville.  She has performed at many international festivals including the Bang on a Can Festival, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Henry Wood’s BBC Promenade, Hong Kong Arts Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Le Festival de Radio France, Lincoln Center Festival, NextWave!/BAM, Ravinia Festival, Silk Road Festival, Tanglewood, Wien Modern and the Yatsugatake Kogen Festival in Japan.

Highlights of Wu Man’s 2006-07 season include solo recitals in Baltimore, Costa Mesa, CA, Portland, OR and the Theatre de la Ville in Paris; a tour with the Moscow Soloists and Yuri Bashmet to Washington, DC, San Francisco and Carnegie Hall in New York, during which she performs as soloist in Tan Dun’s Concerto For String Orchestra and Pipa; concerts at Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood with the Silk Road Ensemble, featuring new works by several composers from around the world; and tours in Italy and Asia with the Kronos Quartet as well as concerts in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Vienna with the ensemble.  Wu Man also performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Silk Road Ensemble in Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto, and with the Binghamton Philharmonic in Tan Dun’s Pipa Concerto.

A major participant in the performance of new and contemporary music, Wu Man has given several world premieres throughout the past few seasons.  During the 2005-06 season Wu Man premiered Ancient Dances, a multimedia work by Chen Yi and Wu Man that combines projections of Chinese calligraphy with pipa music, exploring the connections between the two ancient Chinese traditions.  She gave the world premiere of Ancient Dances in November 2005 in Philadelphia, and the New York premiere in April 2006 at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, and continues to perform the work throughout the U.S. and Europe during the 2006-07 season.  Also during the 2005-06 season Wu Man gave the world premiere of Chinese Early Music Suite, arranged by the Kronos Quartet and Wu Man, and Red Blue Green, written by Wu Man. 

Additional world premieres performed by Wu Man include Chen Yi’s Ning! with Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall; Bright Sheng’s concerto Nanking!Nanking! with Germany’s NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra directed by Christoph Eschenbach, as well as Sheng’s Songs for Cello and Pipa premiered at the White House with Mr. Ma, and the chamber opera Silver River premiered at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Spoleto Festival 2000 USA; Ye Xiaogang's Pipa Concerto with Germany's RSO Radio Symphony Orchestra, directed by Gunther Herbig; Lou Harrison's Concerto for Pipa and Orchestra with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra for Lincoln Center’s Great Performances, directed by Dennis Russell Davies; and Tan Dun's Ghost Opera with the Kronos Quartet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Wu Man recently collaborated with Philip Glass and five other world musicians on Orion, a seven-movement work comprised of music drawn from the indigenous traditions of Australia, China, Canada, the Gambia (Africa), Brazil, India and Greece commissioned by Cultural Olympiad in Athens.  Wu Man gave the world premiere of the work with the Philip Glass Ensemble and featured soloists on June 3, 2004 in Athens, and during the summer of 2005 she performed the U.S. premiere of the work at Ravinia and gave its West Coast premiere at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, CA.  During the 2005-06 season, Wu Man and the Philip Glass Ensemble performed Orion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, Bass Hall in Austin, TX and the Melbourne Festival in Australia.

Additional highlights of Wu Man’s 2005-06 season included the New York premiere of Terry Riley’s Cusp Of Magic with the Kronos Quartet and a performance with Indian Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle at Zankel Hall, as well as performances of Cusp Of Magic at the Chinese Music Festival in Amsterdam, Tan Dun’s Concerto For String Orchestra and Pipa with the Nashville Symphony, and Philip Glass’ Sound of a Voice at the Tucson Chamber Music Festival.  Wu Man gave the world premiere of Sound of a Voice, a music theater piece, at the American Repertory Theater in Boston during the 2004-05 season. 

Wu Man has recorded several albums on various labels, including a recording of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera with the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch, a solo recording, Wu Man – Pipa From a Distance for Naxos, several other solo recordings for Nimbus Records and two recordings with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma for Sony Classical.  Wu Man’s recent releases include a CD of world music entitled Wu Man and Friends on the Traditional Crossroads label, on which she performs with musicians from Uganda, Ukraine and the southern Appalachian Mountains, and a recording of Orion with the Philip Glass Ensemble for the Orange Mountain label.  Nonesuch released a new recording with the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man and singer Asha Bhosle called You’ve Stolen My Heart in August 2005, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.  The album pays homage to the composer of classic Bollywood songs, Rahul Dev Burman.  Upcoming recordings for Wu Man include Terry Riley’s Cusp of Magic with the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch, as well as a recording of world music and traditional and contemporary pipa repertoire on Nonesuch (release dates TBD).

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied with Lin Shicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin, and Liu Dehai at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa.  When in China, Wu Man received first prize in the 1st National Music Performance Competition among other awards. She also participated in many groundbreaking premieres of works by a new generation of Chinese composers.  Wu Man currently lives in San Diego, and she formerly lived in Boston for 12 years, where she was selected as a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University.  Wu Man was selected by Yo-Yo Ma as the winner of the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in music and communication.  She is also the first artist from China to have performed at the White House.

June 2006