Saw a TV commercial the other day for this ensemble which I found mildly disturbing. Maybe because the sight of such synchronized strummings and smiles is bound to fire up some Asian-fetishist’s duodecuplet fantasy; maybe because those who order the Eastern Energy CD/DVD (officially released today and already scoring a sales rank of 15 on Amazon.com) receive as bonus gift a fold-out “pocket photo album,” one “girl” per page; or, preposterous marketing tactics aside, maybe just because these conservatory-trained musicians from the PRC deserve more than to simulate Yanni on a pentatonic scale or rearrange Riverdance for Chinese instruments (in fact the basis for one of the group’s tracks). There’s good reason of course to applaud any well-received effort to popularize and internationalize traditional Chinese music, but this particular project seems tailored to visual consumption far more than aural exposure. If this seems gratuitously negative, let me be very, very positive about the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, e.g., this compilation.
More positivity concerning the PRC: hereby recommending the transcript of Wen Jiabao’s shrewd, bar-raising speech at Harvard Business School back in December 2003, which I attended, lucking out on a lottery, and should have posted on long ago.