East meets West in a musical ensemble visiting as part of Arts Festival Dunedin, writes Gillian Thomas.
WOMAD Festival headliners A Moving Sound, who will perform at Arts Festival Dunedin on October 17, have been heralded as one of the few groups offering truly creative music from Asia, mixing Taiwanese and Chinese styles with Western influences.
Ever since the first Womad Festival in 1982, interest in world music has blossomed and encompasses a huge range of music and dance styles that celebrate the diversity of ethnic and national traditions.
Through globalisation, those traditions have been influenced by each other to give rise to what's now called global fusion music.
Global fusion group A Moving Sound, or Sheng Dong as they are known in Taiwan, has a musical style which reviewers find challenging to pigeon-hole; descriptions vary from ''gorgeous music that hovers somewhere between folk-rock and Chinoiserie'', to ''at times it sounds like a Taipei take on progressive rock: and at other times it evokes shades of an Oriental Fairport Convention''.
American Scott Prairie formed the group after falling for Taiwanese vocalist and dancer Mia Hsieh in New York.
''I had been in New York City for 10 years doing my thing as an avant-garde composer with a penchant for ethnic music as well as a singer-songwriter. Mia was in New York studying experimental voice with Meredith Monk and her contemporaries. I fell for her as an amazing artist and inspired soul then visited Taiwan and fell for Taiwan. The group's been in existence for 12 years and she and I have been married for 10 years.''
Scott says that their music is inspired by equal parts of ethnicity and individual artistic inspiration.
''Mia has a very unique sensibility. Lodged in her psyche are all of the sounds of the music that can be found in Taiwan: folk music of many regions, aboriginal music, music from the temples, as well as classical music that has come from China over generations of immigration to Taiwan, some of which use dialects that are no longer in existence. The most exciting part, however, is that Mia transcends this with her own personal inspiration and her transcendent vocals and dance.''
Scott says A Moving Sound's members offer their traditional training as well as their excitement to go beyond it.
He ranks the group's zhong ruan player as currently the best in Taiwan, especially in interpreting new compositional styles.
The zhong ruan is sometimes known as a moon guitar.
Other exotic instruments include the erhu - a two-stringed instrument held vertically, and Chinese percussion instruments such as a gong and fish-shaped wood block.
Scott himself plays the guitar and the lute.
''Generally the music works with me creating a basic melody and the others developing it. I could not write solos or some of the other instrumental lines in an authentic away as the others could, so I turn it over to them.
''I love the sound of the erhu and zhong ruan. I also enjoy a lot of the traditional music. However, the fact is many Western audiences would get bored if they sat down and listened to a whole evening of one specific traditional style.
''I believe that I am able to create inspired musical compositions that show the instruments' tone and the musical tradition they come from, yet present them in song arrangements that are quite compelling and exciting for a universal audience.
