The Chindia Dialogues: New Music & China

David Weinstein hosts singer Qian Yi, composer Du Yun on the phone, producer Dave Liang of the Shanghai Restoration Project, and Rachel Cooper of the Asia Society where a three day symposium takes place Nov. 3-6, 2011.

The conversation ranges from some anecdotes and history on Shanghai both in the 30s and today, on the jazz and club scene there, and on the Kunqu form of Chinese populist opera that Qian Yi has mastered and that has influenced her collaborations with composer Du Yun.

About the symposium: Through ten public talks and two music performances, twenty of China and India's leading creative voices explore the transformative power of literature and the arts to frame the national and global issues that link two of Asia's most populous nations to each other. With writers and cultural thinkers Amit Chaudhuri, Siddhartha Deb, Amitav Ghosh, Yu Hua, Zha Jianying, Ha Jin, Meena Kandasamy, Amitava Kumar, Zhang Le, Dave Liang’s The Shanghai Restoration Project, Suketu Mehta, Gingger Shankar, Su Tong, Qian Yi, Du Yun, Xu Xiaobin, Murong Xuecun, and many others. The forum takes place in conjunction with the Asia Society Museum exhibition, Rabindranath Tagore: The Last Harvest (on view through December 31, 2011), celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature – his extraordinary achievement as a writer, composer, and visual artist, and his visionary commitment to Asian cultural dialogue and global citizenship.

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