Playing hither and zither

Playing for all

One day, an elderly man sitting next to her told her after her performance, "you should take the guzheng to more European cities and share the beauty of Chinese music with more people because a lot of them, myself included, don't know about it".

She says that this is in fact one of her plans, to take her guzheng on a "global journey".

To that effect, Peng has visited four countries so far — Italy, Switzerland, Spain and France.

Peng says she hopes to perform in more cities in Europe so that more people will have the chance to appreciate the charm of the guzheng and Chinese music.

To improve her performance and make it easier to understand, Peng would also like to make more attempts to fuse Chinese and Western music.

In addition to some improvised collaborative performances with other street artists, Peng tries to combine traditional guzheng music with avantgarde electronic music originating from France.

"Nowadays, many guzheng techniques are being innovated, and a lot of contemporary compositions are also making great breakthroughs," Peng says.

"To see the guzheng go global and get more people to know of it, understand it, and love it, I think this is the biggest wish of Chinese artists playing the traditional musical instrument."

Renowned Chinese pianist Lang Lang also encouraged Peng when she performed with him on a TV show in 2019.

He said to her, "what you are doing now is a very meaningful thing, to promote and spread Chinese instruments to the world".

Cao Chenyuan and Yan Yuqing contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at caihong@chinadaily.com.cn