Life revealed between notes

Luo Wen's musical odyssey has stretched over 30 years, and she is now on the third leg of that journey, each leg having delivered her a revelation.

Luo was born in Chongqing to a musical family, her father a singer and her mother a pianist, and both performing traditional Chinese music. She started playing the piano when she was 5.

"Since starting my musical journey it has taken almost 30 years to understand that in the world of music there really is no school or no style," she says.

Luo, 38, was among an influx of Chinese who took up musical studies in Germany in the 1990s, and she is said to be the only Chinese who has studied pipe organ music in Belgium.

After graduating in 1998 as a pianist at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, one of the top music colleges in China, she became a piano teacher at the Jimei University in Xiamen.

Questions about the essence of music lingered, she says, and after talking with a former classmate who had gone on to study violin at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, Luo decided to continue piano studies in the German city in 2000.

Soon after she arrived in Germany she began to understand that its music was much more international than she had realized.

"I thought German music was very different to that of other Western countries," she says. "When anyone talked of German music, I immediately thought of Bach, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. But I found that it has many American elements.

"From my first day in Germany, I had been under the impression that different languages generate different music genres, and based on different genres, music has various schools."

In 2007 she had a baby and "almost gave up on further musical education", she says. By this time she was living in Belgium. The visit of a cousin to the country in 2007 was about to set her off on the second leg of her musical journey.

"He came to Belgium and we were sightseeing, and we visited a historic church. A musician happened to be there playing the pipe organ, and invited us to play a song.

"It was extraordinary that in 20 years of studying music I had never touched a pipe organ, and the glorious sound mesmerized me."

Since then, Luo, who now has two children, has played the pipe organ in Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, in conjunction with the noted organ virtuoso and musicologist Joris Verdin.

"Playing the organ in so many countries, I came to realize that in the world of music, there is no school or boundary. Even though I have learned German, that does not mean that my way of thinking has become 'German'. Music does have a foundation in language, but its value is totally personal."

The third leg of Luo's odyssey began three years ago when she decided, having found the answers to some of her questions, to introduce Chinese musicians and music to Europe.

Her aim now is to build a bridge by introducing Sichuan opera, a musical art from her home, to Europe.

"I hope I can bring our musical culture to Europe for more people to admire and enjoy," she says.

tuoyannan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 08/08/2014 page8)