Saturday, August 12, 2017

Daisy Wu, A Teacher in Alfred

ALFRED: Some people can be defined with a single word.  Daisy (Zhongbei) Wu, Associate Director, Confucius Institute, and Visiting Associate Professor, Performing Arts Department, Alfred University has a long title but can be described with one word - teacher.
          Teachers often aren’t given the status they deserve.  Being a teacher isn’t simple, not for a serious, dedicated teacher. Wu seems to be such a teacher, a person whose heart and mind work together deeply to make the best presentations possible for her students.  She has pride in their achievements and says she learns as much from them as they do from her. They talk of cultural and music, speaking with words as well as with the vibrating strings of the guzheng, a stringed instrument developed nearly 3,000 years ago in China.
          People find their way to Alfred through various routes. Wu told me that she was born in central China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Her parents were educated. Her father was a scientist, a chemist and concert master in an orchestra. Her home was filled with a sister, her mother’s tai chi and her father’s music.
          From tender years, she played piano and sang but when she was 9 her father decided that her life would be richer if she studied the guzheng. Her fingers and her voice enveloped the instrument, charming audiences. She won national and international awards for her performances while still a child and though she thought she would follow her father into the sciences he urged her to attend the Hunan Normal University music program.
          Wu’s father told her that music was good for her and she was good for the guzheng. He was correct. After earning an advanced degree, Wu had a successful career teaching music at Hunan University of Commerce and as a guzheng performer but then her world was reshaped by the birth of a daughter, Candy, and shaken by the sudden loss of her honored father in 2008.  Her sadness was intense. She felt that doors had closed on her world.
          In 2009, her husband, Edward Zhou, professor of accounting at Hunan University, was given a 1 year scholarship for study and research overseas and he thought that if the family moved to the US it would involve so many changes, distractions and demands that Daisy would find her sadness leaving her while new windows re-opened her world.
          Wu agreed to a temporary move to the US with her family so asked for a leave of absence from Hunan University. That was when she became aware of the Confucius Institute.  The Confucius Institute created opportunities to teach Chinese culture, art and music overseas. In particular, the CI at Alfred University needed a teacher and, since it offered a Business School where her husband could study, it sounded just right. 
          It’s been a perfect fit. When Daisy arrived on November 10, 2009, Dr. Wilfred Huang and his wife drove to the airport and brought everyone to Alfred. She had just a day to settle in because on November 12, she was scheduled to make a presentation at Nevins Theater, a presentation made daunting because it would be in English.
          In China, students study English from grade 7 through college but studying English and speaking it aren’t the same. Because she is a dedicated teacher, she spent hours practicing her presentation and was bolstered by the warm reception given to her that day in Nevins. People understood her and enjoyed her music.
          Alfred has felt like home from the start. She found friends, important work, membership in the Union University Church and a Montessori school for her daughter, a toddler at the time.
          At the end of that first year, she performed at a Chinese New Year Gala in Alfred and then in 2010 began teaching beginning guzheng to her first 7 students. The guzheng program has grown and students can take both beginning and ensemble level courses in guzheng. Traditional Chinese music has a 5 note scale and is written in a different sort of notation using numerals, dots and lines but contemporary Western music can be performed on it also.
          Daisy Wu spent 5 years teaching at AU under the umbrella of the Confucius Institute but is now a Visiting Associate Professor in Performing Arts. In these years, her husband has earned a PhD from Rutgers and Candy has attended Alfred Almond School while studying piano, violin and clarinet.
          Daisy Wu’s students have blossomed.  Under her tutelage, they memorize the music. She said, “If you don’t rely on the paper, all the music comes from your heart.”
          As evidence of her superior teaching skills and her spot-on philosophy, a trio of her students won the gold medal in the 2016 Chinese Instruments International Competition in New York. The trio, Brandon-Charles Miller, Tiffany Pham and Richard Lopez, were complimented on their technical skill but more than that for their ability to interpret the story behind the piece they played, The Warrior.  These gold medal winners were the only contestants who were not Chinese and didn’t have a life time of experience in the Chinese culture.  That’s impressive.
          Brandon-Charles Miller told me that Daisy Wu is his second mother and that she is a wonderful teacher. She is not strict but students feel the need to please her because she makes it clear that what they do is important to her. She has many ways of explaining things to students so that no matter what a student’s background or problem, she finds a way to make each person understand.
          Daisy Wu is an internationally recognized guzheng master but in Alfred she is much more. She is the teacher.
         



BOX: The Confucius Institute is a non-profit, public educational organization affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education. The aim of the CI is to promote Chinese language and culture and promote cultural exchange. The program began in 2004 and operates with affiliate colleges and universities around the world with the majority in the US, Korea and Japan. There are also Confucius Classroom programs that work in secondary school to provide teachers and instructional materials. One goal is to promote the Chinese language.

Search on Youtube for Zhongbei (Daisy) Wu to hear her perform traditional pieces as well as her original compositions.
Here are some links.

Alfred University Guzheng Ensemble:"Swordsman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbKuoDLkNwI

Zhongbei Daisy Wu 《Water 水 2015》on Guzheng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQCOILVHod0 

Guzheng and Guqin: Layghing Over the Blue Sea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEc8dXF7jDE


 

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