World music from the Commonwealth countries for BBC Radio 3’s World on 3, Fridays. Musicians, sportspeople and cultural figures introduce music recorded on location.
World music from the Commonwealth countries for BBC Radio 3’s World on 3, Fridays. Musicians, sportspeople and cultural figures introduce music recorded on location.
Singapore is home to a very senior group of 'waijiang' musicians originating from Chaozhou in southern China. Their waijiang style of playing was popular in pre-cultural revolutionary China but is now extinct on the mainland. Yet in their small shop house in the Geylang neighbourhood these senior gentlemen still take pride in performing pieces such as 'Little Peach Red' and 'Pipa verse'. Not far away in Chinatown a group of young students from the Siong Leng Musical Association practice Nanyin or 'southern pipes music' - the traditional wooden flute and voice reminisce wistfully of home.