Revived ruan explores tradition through modern experimentation

The event opened with Cloud Herding, composed by Yao and performed with zhongruan, guqin (a seven-stringed Chinese zither), erhu (a two-stringed bowed instrument), and bamboo flute (a vertical end-blown wind instrument).

Rather than highlighting a single voice, the work allows each instrument to remain independent while being interwoven.

"It's like the relationship between four people," Yao explains.

The bamboo flute cuts sharply through the texture; the guqin remains low and grounded; the erhu wanders freely. The zhongruan acts as a mediator, softening the edges.

For Yao, music carries philosophical inquiry. In Cloud Herding, he seeks restraint. "There is no extreme climax, no extreme low," he says."The instruments seem unwilling to assert themselves."

The second performance, A Flower It Is, Yet Not a Flower; A Fog It Is, Yet Not a Fog, featured two duets for daruan and zheng (a plucked Chinese zither) by young composer Wu Xuanping. Here, the ruan shed its gentle persona, becoming forceful and rhythmically charged, at times resembling murmured speech.

Wu attributes this effect to micro-tones unique to Chinese instruments. While Western music divides pitch into half steps, the ruan allows quarter tones, creating subtle tensions as notes brush against one another, he says. Rather than pursuing novelty for its own sake, Wu approaches experimentation as a way to apply contemporary compositional techniques to the spiritual core of tradition.

The final work, Second Concerto for Zhongruan, paired the instrument with piano and incorporated elements reminiscent of popular music.

Li, the soloist throughout the event, described the three works as "film, ink painting, and realism".

In the first, the ruan emerged gradually, like an image developing on photographic film. In the second, the interaction between ruan and zither resembled expressive splashes of ink. The final piece, he says, was written explicitly to foreground the ruan itself. Having studied multiple traditional instruments since childhood before specializing in the zhongruan, Li views instruments as extensions of personal expression.

Because of its finely divided pitch system, he says, the ruan can evoke ancient sounds embedded in regional dialects. And because its history is interrupted, it is less constrained by tradition.

"It can be soft," he says. "And it can carry enormous tension."

On Saturday, Li and other young musicians will bring these works to the Blue Note Jazz Club in Beijing, further testing the instrument's expressive range. Producer Zhu Wei hopes audiences will recognize its versatility."In an ensemble, the ruan is often almost invisible," she says. "But its openness makes it uniquely suited to contemporary collaboration."

"The ruan is not an 'Eastern guitar'," Li emphasizes. He says he is not worried about its audience. At a moment when many young people in China are reexamining cultural identity, he believes the ruan can stand for something distinctly their own.

Bai Shuhao contributed to this story.