This summer I'm volunteering at the Peg Egan Performing Arts Center in Egg Harbor, Door County (Wisconsin/USA), home of the 2010 Sunset Concert Series. At the opening show on Sunday evening, June 27th, hundreds of sun-drenched music fans enjoyed Chicago harmonica virtuoso Corky Siegel's eclectic Chamber Blues project.
Siegel presented an intriguing fusion of the blues, classical & world music. His touring group features a beautiful young Taiwanese-born musician named Chihsuan Yang on violin & erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed fiddle. The highlight of the show for me was when Ms. Yang led the group on her own untitled composition - "a Chinese blues," Siegel quipped - which started with a long, captivating erhu solo.
At the post-concert reception, I asked Ms. Yang whether she agrees with critics who claim that the violin is the most emotionally expressive instrument, aside from the human voice. She disagreed, asserting that the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) is actually the most expressive instrument. Ms. Yang, who also plays piano & Okinawa shansin, admitted that she was distracted during the concert by the sublime clouds floating around the Egg Harbor venue.
Ms. Yang is versatile, having played erhu for the Dalai Lama (during his June 2007 talk at Millenium Park in Chicago) as well as having toured as a violinist with Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys). The Corky Siegel Chamber Blues group is playing at the Chautauqua Festival in upstate New York & the Montreal Jazz Festival this week. Catch them if you can.
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