LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS TEAM UP TO FILM DOCUMENTARY ON HISTORY OF THE TANG MUSIC PROJECT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A film crew will document music and instruments this weekend to complete a joint project of the Library of Congress and the University of Arkansas - a film that traces the history of the Tang Music Project.

Producer Tom Knott and camera man Dan Hnatio will film the final sequences of the documentary "On the Road to Tang" this weekend with the assistance of ethnomusicologists Rembrandt Wolpert and Elizabeth Markham and students in the U of A music department. They will be on campus from Friday, Dec. 7 to Monday, Dec. 10.

The Tang Court music, (618-906 AD) was imported from the Tang dynasty in China to Japan by emissaries from the then-young state where it was preserved in manuscripts that were copied and re-copied and housed in various places including in libraries of the Japanese Imperial Court. Remarkably though these ancient Tang melodies still lie buried in the midst of modern day performance practice of Japanese court music.

At its peak, the Tang dynasty’s cultural influence stretched from Turkish city-states in the West to Japan in the East, and from Siberian tribes in the North to Vietnam in the South. People traveled from other countries, including Japan, Mongolia, India, Korea and Turkey, to learn about the Tang culture. Towards the end of the dynasty, however, the rulers closed the country’s borders, fearing the destruction of their civilization.

Over hundreds of years the music of the Tang dynasty disappeared from the mainland. It remained forgotten and unrecognizable in its present form in Japanese court music until the musicologist Laurence Picken, Distinguished Professor at Jesus College, Cambridge University, unearthed ancient manuscripts tucked away inside Japan’s Imperial Library. The uncovered repertory includes music from China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Turkish Central Asia, medieval Korea and seventh century Persia.

"On the Road to Tang" will include Picken’s research in Asia, renowned opera conductor and music preservationist Sarah Caldwell’s interest in preserving and performing the Tang music, and Wolpert and Markham’s subsequent work in the transcription of this music into Western notation. The film is a joint effort between the Library of Congress and the University’s International Center for the Study of Early Asian and Middle Eastern Musics.

Shiori Yamaguchi, a student in voice, will sing two a student in voice, will sing two Saibara, a Frog Song sung to a medieval Korean melody, and At my Gate, which uses a melody also found in the Tang dynasty. Saibara, translated as "music for urging on horses," include some of the oldest Japanese folk tunes known today. Markham has traced their incorporation into Japanese court music around the time of the Tang Dynasty.

Another group of students will perform a melody called The Wine Puppet, a Central Asian drinking song from 'medieval' Sogdia, in an arrangement by Laurence Picken. They will use Western instruments for their interpretation, Markham said