Romance of the Fruit Peddler / Romance of the Western Chamber (2024) - The Silent Film Soundtracks Re-Scored with Composer Min Xiao-Fen

Composer and pipa virtuoso, Ms. Min Xiao-Fen is our guest this week to talk about her recently released album Metta, in which she soundtracks 2 Chinese silent films, The Romance of the Fruits Peddler and Romance of the Western Chamber with new original music. She performs the scores on the pipa with River Gueguerian providing percussion. These scores were commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute in 2023. We also discuss: Growing up in a musical family Going from a classical background to collaborating with jazz greats like John Zorn, Derek Bailey and Wadada Leo Smith Collaborating with Bjork on "I See Who You Are" from the album Volta Learning to improvise and learning the Chinese connection to jazz For More Information about Min Xiao-Fen:Website: http://minbluepipa.com/newsIG: https://www.instagram.com/minxiaofenFB: https://www.facebook.com/min.xiaofen/An NPR interview with Ms. Min from 2021:https://www.npr.org/2021/07/03/1012832047/the-traditional-chinese-pipa-meets-guitar-in-min-xiao-fens-white-lotusIf you'd like to support Soundtrack Your Life, we have a Patreon, where you'll get bonus episodes and more!This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacySpotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/Soundtrack Your Life SocialsBlueskyInstagramWriting SiteYouTubePatreon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices