Composer's folk sound goes on tour around US

Composer Ma Jiuyue. [Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/China Daily]

Since then, Ma's interest in reviving Chinese folk music grew. He learned to play the two-stringed bowed erhu since childhood to fulfill the dream of his father, who failed in his bid to gain admission to the central conservatory, and instead began to teach music at a community art school in his hometown of Jinan in eastern China's Shandong province.

"I was shocked when I saw my father cry," Ma says of a time when his erhu teacher asked his father to take him home because playing the two-stringed instrument appeared boring to him. "That moment onward I decided to practice hard and focus on the instrument."

"The sound of the instrument can be sad and ecstatic, which is so versatile," Ma says of the erhu.

Ma also attributes his learning to Liu Changfu, with whom he studied since entering the high school affiliated to the central conservatory. Liu is a renowned erhu musician, who is China's first known master's degree-holder on the instrument from the Central Conservatory of Music.

Categorized as a poor student, Ma was on the verge of being expelled from the central conservatory a few times. Back then, he wore his hair long and adored the late Taiwan pop singer Teresa Teng, and he was obsessed with Broadway musicals and jazz. Ma says, looking back, the different musical elements that he absorbed turned into a chemical reaction inside his body.

His first break came in 1998, when Chinese instruments player Feng Xiaoquan invited Ma to make an album and tour parts of Asia, including Japan and South Korea. The full house performances gave Ma lots of confidence in exploring and modernizing Chinese folk music.

Working as an independent music producer since 1993, Ma has led several high-profile projects, including the 100-day countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Hollywood musician Jeff Rona has described Ma as "a genius composer of world music".

In Chinese folk, Ma is proud of his collaboration with pipa (a four-stringed plucked instrument) player Zhao Cong. Ma helped Zhao make his debut album, Sound of China, which was released by Universal Music in March 2008.

"When we made the album, we weren't sure about whether it would be launched. We used our own money to make it and stayed up nights to find the perfect sound of the pipa," Ma says.