WU NA

An award-winning Guqin player who began her training at the age of nine, Wu Na entered the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1997 where she majored in Guqin. In 2004, she became the first musician in China to receive a Master’s degree in Guqin performance.

Wu Na’s dual education in both Chinese and Western music has inspired her to seek a new voice for the Guqin in contemporary music, and she has performed and recorded with jazz, rock, experimental avant-garden music, and classical musicians.

She has made several brief performance tours in Asia and Europe, and in 2008, received a scholarship from the Asian Cultural Council to live in New York for five months to research contemporary art and music in America. She participated in three charity performances held in New York to raise funds for the Wenchuan Earthquake in China. In 2010, she launched a series “Guqin Theater – an anthology of Wu Na,” inviting artists and musicians from all over the world to join in the dialogue with Guqin.

In 2012, she held individual and cross-border cooperation concerts in France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and other European countries.

In 2020, invited by the world-renowned Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, she participated in the “Incomplete” global music project with the improvised work “Liang Xiao Yin”.

In 2022, she was invited by NPR’s “Tiny Desk meets globalFEST” as a guest performer with the Chinese rock icon Cui Jian’s band.