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Yuwen Peng
The band’s first album, Sizhukong, was released in 2007, followed by Paper Eagle in 2009. In 2010, Peng began incorporating new sounds in the band’s music by using electric guitar, electric keyboards as well as flirting with electronics. Sony signed up the band, and 2012 saw the release of Sizhukong’s third album, Spin.
With Peng steering the band through new musical waters, Sizhukong have played jazz festivals throughout Asia. In March 2012, the band was invited to perform several dates in Canada, as part of Canadian Music Week (CMW). The response from fans and other musicians was extremely positive.
Peng’s jazz-influenced piano may be at the helm of the band, but she draws heavily from Taiwanese and Chinese folk tradition as a basis for her compositions. Now, with a more modern brand of jazz-fusion coloring the music, Peng has once more reinvented Sizhukong.
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Yuwen Peng: Putting a Spin on Sizhukong
by Ian Patterson
Yuwen Peng doesn't like resting on her laurels. The pianist, composer and founder of Taiwanese sextet Sizhukong had already taken a bold step in integrating Western instruments, African music and jazz harmonies with traditional Taiwanese and Chinese folk songs on Sizhukong's self-titled debut recording in 2007. The follow-up to that, Paper Eagle (Sizhukong Records, 2009), followed a very similar pattern, though the refinement in the band's sound was notable. More of the same wouldn't have been a ...
read more"Jazz's first century has thrown up few examples of Chinese folk music which has found new voice in this idiom. Buck Clayton, in collaboration with Li Jinhui, spent two years in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, adapting Chinese folk music to ballroom jazz, but nothing was recorded
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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson