At 9:00 a.m. on April 22, the fifth session of "Zhou Wenzhong Forum" of Xinghai Conservatory of Music invited pipa performer and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music Distinguished Professor Wu Man as a guest. The theme of the lecture was "New Thinking of National Instrumental Music Ensemble from the Silk Road Orchestra" . The lecture was presided over by Liang Lei, chairman of the Academic Committee of Zhou Wenzhong Music Research Center, and Cai Qiaozhong, dean of Xinghai Conservatory of Music, listened to and participated in with nearly 300 online audiences.

Cai Qiaozhong first gave an opening speech and presented the honorary certificate of "Zhou Wenzhong Forum Scholar" to Wu Man. President Cai believes that the Silk Road Project art creation project initiated by Wu Man and Yo-Yo Ma, one of the founders of the "Silk Road Orchestra", is very world-minded and culturally forward-looking. Since then, Liang Lei has also expressed his precious friendship with Wu Man for 30 years. In his eyes, Wu Man, a star performer with extremely high box office value, is always at ease and at ease on and off the stage and in front of and behind the camera. She is an artist with a sense of personal mission and artistic belief. Her performance is soft and decisive, and her warmth is calm.

In this lecture, Wu Man described the development history, musical concepts and musical achievements of the Silk Road Orchestra over the past 20 years with rich audio and picture materials. The lecture started with the founding purpose of the Silk Road Orchestra in 1998. When Yo-Yo Ma and musicians and scholars proposed "what would happen if we were all strangers", the first three years of the Silk Road Music Project began. Musicians around the world. The philosophy upheld by the orchestra can be seen in the first album "When Strangers Meet" released by the orchestra in 2002 and the 2016 Silk Road Orchestra documentary "The Music of Stranger". Wu Man recounted his experiences and wonderful experiences of musicians from all over the world performing outdoors at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2000. In 2001, the "911 Incident" in the United States shocked all the members of the orchestra, and many musicians came from Central Asia, which was very close to the war. The musicians realized, "We don't just play music, we are also cultural messengers. We come together because of differences. Differences are the wealth of the world, not emphasizing that we want to be the same." The orchestra found a new mission - Promote cross-cultural understanding.

Since then, the Silk Road Orchestra has left traditional performance venues and moved closer to the masses and diversity, entering museums and the Smithsonian Folklore Festival (2002), collaborating with symphony orchestras, art schools, cultural institutions and educational institutions. The Silk Road Orchestra began to find its own voice on and off the stage, and eventually grew into a musical culture-promoting project with sound education and social impact. For example, the Silk Road Orchestra launched the Global Musician Training Camp (GMW) in 2015. With government funding, students from all over the world can study and experience diverse music cultures in Asia, Africa, Europe and other worlds for free here. Wu Man also talked about the orchestra's new artistic director, Grammy Award-winning Rhiannon Giddens, whose new musical concept is dedicated to serving underserved (impoverished) communities. The orchestra's latest project is to explore the music of the American Silk Road, and to explore the great contribution and cultural influence of Chinese, black, Indian and European immigrants to the United States and the world society during the construction of the American railway line from east to west.

The lecture attracted scholars, musicians, students and music fans from all over the world. The content of the lecture involves Wu Man's understanding of the "future tradition" mentioned in his article "Unbounded: From the Interpretation of Chen Yi's Two Contemporary Pipa Music Expressions", as well as issues such as the identity and value of Chinese musical instruments in cross-cultural cooperation. . Regarding the issue of "future tradition", Wu Man took the string piece "The Silent City" composed by Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhot as an example, and explained it from the perspective of musical hearing. When unfamiliar cultures meet, musicians should learn from each other and create "traditions of the future" together. Liang Lei believes that tradition is constantly being created, including performance and academic research, and that tradition is full of the creativity of people from the "past, present and future". Among the many questions about cross-cultural communication of music, Wu Man said: "Sometimes the folk music we understand is actually a concept of world music. When studying Chinese traditional music, it should be understood in the world. When it comes to pipa, it cannot be limited to the pipa itself, and all related musical instruments need to be studied, and one should understand the Dutar, Indian Sitar, Japanese pipa and other musical instruments." Wu Man recounted his own experience in the process of learning music from various countries in the world, and found in the comparison. The value and characteristics of Chinese music. For pipa performance, Wu Man emphasized that individuals need to have solid basic skills in traditional music, otherwise, when faced with the profound traditional vocabulary of musicians from various countries, they may face the problem of insufficient "vocabulary" of pipa music. Regarding the ensemble method of the Silk Road Orchestra, Wu Man gave an example. When ensemble with Iranian musicians, the members of the orchestra will first follow the Iranian musicians to play the Muqam scale. Musicians need a keen ear to memorize a variety of rhythms, melodies and scales. Wu Man believes that future performers need to have the ability to perform and create at the same time. She talked about her experience working with American composer Philip Glass on "Orion," where she got only the notes, and the composer said, "I'll give you the score now, and you'll turn it into the sound of a lute. "

In this lecture, Wu Man, a cross-cultural performer and music creator who travels around the world, put forward new understandings and new ideas for the development of folk music from the perspective of world music. The mission has profound thinking and experience, and makes unremitting efforts to promote the equality and tolerance of world music culture. The lecture aroused heated discussion among the audience. In this regard, Liang Lei said: "It is our original intention to hold the 'Zhou Wenzhong Forum' to provoke a free and serious academic dialogue."