West meets east in an intriguing St. Andrew’s Bach Society concert Sunday, June 30, featuring a western guitar and a Chinese guzheng.
“Bach Without Borders,” the second installment in the popular summer concert series, will combine traditional Chinese music with works by Bach transcribed for classical guitar, featuring the Chinese husband and wife duo of Bin Hu and Jing Xia.
The concert is a first for St. Andrew’s Bach Society, which has never featured the guzheng.
“It’s going to be really unique. I haven’t done anything that I can remember that has been nontraditional music,” said Ben Nisbet, the society’s artistic director.
Nisbet, with a little nudge from Tucson Guitar Society Board Chairwoman Julia Pernet, has been flirting for several seasons with the idea of featuring Hu, a graduate student in the University of Arizona’s prestigious guitar program. In addition to being a seasoned soloist, Hu is known for his guitar transcription of Bach’s famous Chaconne, a work that Hu has recorded.
“For a couple of years, (Pernet) has been saying I really think you should have this guy, but I didn’t have anywhere to put him,” Nisbet said.
When he found out that Hu performs a duo with his wife, Xia, a critically acclaimed virtuoso on the Chinese guzheng, Nisbet was beyond intrigued. The former Tucson Symphony Orchestra violinist had encountered the instrument just twice in his career — back in 2006 when the orchestra performed a guzheng concerto and again when he toured China in 2011 with Artifact Dance — but was admittedly smitten with the instrument.
“I didn’t have any knowledge of anyone in the U.S. or the Southwest who could play” guzheng, Nisbet said. “This literally jumped in my lap.”
Nisbet said Sunday’s concert will feature solo turns by Hu and Xia before they perform traditional Chinese works together.
