Autumn Meditation By the Dresser ( 妝台秋思 ) – Traditional, arranged by Du, Ci Wen
Charlie Lui (dadi)
Growing up in a musical family, Charlie Lui studied the cello under his father Ki Ling Lui (呂其嶺) since 1988. However, in 1995, his interest in Chinese music took over, and the dizi (Chinese bamboo flute) became his primary focus.
Charlie moved to Vancouver with his family in 1996 and started to study the dizi intensively with Mr. Jian Ming Pan (潘建明). In 2000, he traveled to China to study with dizi virtuoso Mr. Wei-Yu Tan (譚謂裕), professor of Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Charlie has won multiple awards at the Kiwanis Music Competition in Vancouver.
In addition to the dizi, Charlie masters a wide range of Chinese wind instruments, including modified chi-ba, xiao, xun, koudi, paixiao, bawu, and hulusi.
Charlie is the principal dizi player and general director of the BC Chinese Music Orchestra, the largest Chinese music organization in North America.
As a soloist, Charlie has performed numerous dizi concerti: 鷓鴣飛、江南春、牧民新歌、秦川抒懷、山村迎親人.Charlie is also a member of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. In 2008, Charlie co-founded Pentatonics with a number of young Chinese instrumentalists to perform a unique repertoire of original and lively renditions of Chinese, fusion and popular music. Charlie has performed on a number of CDs, including Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra’s “Imaged Worlds” (2010) and composer Jin Zhang’s (張進 Canada) “Tracing“ (2008). In 2011, he premiered concerto grosso “Tsu-ur Song” (潮歌) by Dr. Ning Wang (王寧) with the Nu: BC and the BC Chinese Music Ensemble in a Canada-China collaboration. Charlie performed Steve Chatman’s “Earth Songs” with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on Oct 22 & 23, 2011.
About the Instrument
Dadi: a member of the dizi family of Chinese bamboo transverse flutes – a bamboo flute with a membrane covering one hole to create an increase in resonance and a typical ‘buzzing’ quality. It is really a renaissance flute with a membrane. There are 6 playing holes. The speaking length is determined by blocking the pipe at both ends. There is extra pipe material, which is just aesthetic – this extra length does not affect the speaking length. Since the dizi is mainly a diatonic-major-scale instrument, with very few accidentals playable, they come in many different lengths to accommodate the different keys that a piece of music calls for (for e.g, Charlie Lui plays two different variations in this Festival series, with the lower-pitched one referred to as a dadi).
About the Music
This piece tells the Han dynasty story of Wang Zhaojun, a young bride of royal descent, whose husband takes her away to the Far North. She stands at her dresser in a mountain fortress, yearning for her home. Autumn Meditation is part of a traditional piece called Songs From the Border Fortress, which was originally written for pipa, and was arranged for dizi and guzheng in the 19th century.
Video Production Credits
Director of Photography – Kerry Phillips
Gaffer / B Camera – Yong Jin Kim
Audio Engineer & Mix – Sheldon Zaharko
All additional photography – Kerry Phillips
Filmed and recorded on July 27, 2020 at Pyatt Hall (VSO School of Music) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
For the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra:
Global Soundscapes Festival Producer – Mark Armanini
Senior Project Manager – Farshid Samandari
