Traditional music students will collaborate and perform with China’s Manhu
Warren Wilson College’s Jenny and the Hog Drovers are touring China in January. From left to right: Phil Jamison, Clarke Williams, Maddy Mullany, Landon George, and Hayden Holbert. Photo by Reggie Tidwell.
2017年初，两个由各自国家山区音乐家组成的乐队将在中国进行音乐创作。沃伦葡萄牙韩国足球断交威尔逊学院(Warren Wilson College)的一位教授和他的学生正在与来自中国南方的一个乐团合作。这次多城市、多演出的巡演包括在北京和上海的场馆。
“Looking back over the years, I can now say that some of my most memorable and life changing experiences took place on international tours,” said professor Phil Jamison, an old-time musician and dancer of 40 years who leads the College’s Traditional Music Program. “I want my students to have those same opportunities. We’re going to experience China for the first time together as a band –Jenny and the Hog Drovers.”
With a home base at Warren Wilson College in the southern Appalachian Mountains, the old-time band consists of three undergraduates and one alumna in addition to Jamison. A mere 8,000 miles across the globe, Manhu, a five- to six-piece string band from China’s Yunnan province, creates its own kind of traditional music.
“The traditional music of both regions includes melodies that use a pentatonic 5-note scale. It will be interesting to see how this influences and enables this musical collaboration and ‘cultural exchange’ between the two groups,” said Jamison.
Among the scheduled performances is a concert at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts, which Jamison calls “the Chinese equivalent of the Kennedy Center.” Other stops include the Linden Centre, billed as China’s only nationally protected heritage site; Shilin, which is also known as Stone Forest; the U.S. Embassy in Beijing; the Shanghai Concert Hall; and the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. Jamison and his students will also take part in a recording session with Manhu during the visit to Shanghai.
The original offer to perform in China came from Chris Hawke and Kirk Kenney of the band The Hutong Yellow Weasels. The Beijing-based group’s mission is to teach “1.3 billion people to square dance one gig at a time.” Hawke and Kenney also take classes during Warren Wilson College’s The Swannanoa Gathering, a summer folk arts program dedicated to traditional music and dance. The program’s “Old-Time Music and Dance Week,” which Jamison coordinated for 25 years, attracts musicians from all over the world.
“这次旅行实现了很多教授为学生设定的目标。我们在非常有声望的地方演出。我们正在了解世界上不同的地方，并分享我们自己的经验。我们与国际音乐家合作，希望有一天他们能来到这里。”贾米森补充道。
In addition to Jamison on banjo, Jenny and the Hog Drovers is comprised of Maddy Mullany, a 2016 Warren Wilson College graduate with a degree in art, on fiddle; Clarke Williams, a global studies major, on fiddle and banjo; Hayden Holbert, a sustainable agriculture major, on guitar; and Landon George, a creative writing major, on bass. While there is not a “Jenny” in the band, the name “the Hog Drovers” is about George’s and Holbert’s work with pigs on the Warren Wilson College Farm.
这次旅行的资金来自沃伦·威尔逊学院，包括斯旺纳阿诺集会和教务处葡萄牙韩国足球断交;沃伦威尔逊长老会;通过成功的众筹活动，近60名支持者;and money the band earned from regional performances.
For more information about Jenny and the Hog Drovers, visithttps://facebook.com/JennyandtheHogDrovers.