Pipa and guqin virtuoso Cheng Yu. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

During the afternoon of the second Saturday of every second month the musician Cheng Yu dresses in traditional Chinese attire and takes a guqin and pipa to a special gathering she started in London 20 years ago.

Cheng is a virtuoso of the two instruments who trained at Xi'an Conservatory of Music in the 1980s before playing the pipa with the China National Traditional Orchestra. She later studied for master's and doctoral degrees in ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in the 1990s.

She has been active ever since in educating people and performing Chinese music in the United Kingdom.

To Cheng, sharing and promoting Chinese traditional instruments and music to Westerners brings her the utmost joy and fulfillment.

"This is something that I enjoy doing. It enables them to appreciate a culture that is very unique and different from theirs."

The gathering Cheng initiated, called yaji, is a tradition among Chinese literati that goes back more than 1,000 years, to when ancient scholars and artists first got together to drink tea, write poems, appreciate art and enjoy music.

The bimonthly yaji in London is now organized by the London Youlan Qin Society and focuses on traditional Chinese music, with attendees playing various pieces of music on Chinese instruments, including the guqin, pipa and flute, and with musicians sharing their understanding of the music.

Cheng and the Silk Breeze ensemble perform her composition Dream Butterfly on a five-stringed pipa at East London's Rich Mix Theatre in August 2021. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The guqin, or qin, a seven-stringed Chinese zither, is one of China's oldest instruments, with a history dating back about 3,000 years. Twenty years ago UNESCO proclaimed China's ancient guqin music a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.

Over the years the yaji gatherings in London have drawn professional musicians, scholars, office workers and amateur appreciators of Chinese culture, among others, with attendees coming from all over the UK, and sometimes from elsewhere in Europe.

"In 2003 I established the London Youlan Qin Society and invited a guqin master, Gong Yi from Shanghai, to teach classes and give concerts in London, and since then we have been holding yaji on various themes," Cheng said. "It's like an informal salon in the West that provides a forum for guqin and Chinese music lovers to perform, and discuss music as well as its associated philosophical and cultural aspects."

In July the society marked its 20th anniversary with the 124th yaji gathering in the Djam Lecture Theatre at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Charlie Thomas, who traveled from Birmingham to London for the gathering, as he had five times before, said: "It's not just Chinese people who come. I met a German lady who also liked guqin, and I started talking with her. People here are so welcoming, and they have different backgrounds but share similar interests in guqin."

Thomas has studied guqin with Cheng for about a year.

"Compared with violin, the sound of the guqin is very meditative and more calming," he said, adding that playing the instrument helped him calm down and solved a sleeping problem he had.

UK Chinese Ensemble members pose in front of London's Tower Bridge after a performance last year. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Cultivating mind

In ancient China, guqin, go, calligraphy and painting were regarded as the four arts that a person needed to study to become a scholar, because they were said to cultivate one's mind and disposition in different ways.

Cheng, born into a musical family in Beijing, first studied the pipa, the Chinese plucked lute, with her father when she was 7, and she then got to study with a guqin master, Li Xiangting, when she was at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music.

"My father is a pipa master, and I still remember receiving the pipa on my 7th birthday as a gift," Cheng said. "My grandfather plays the guqin, so I was interested in learning both."

In 1987 Cheng graduated with distinction in pipa and guqin performance before playing with the China National Traditional Orchestra in Beijing. She moved to London in 1990 and studied ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and later taught both the guqin and pipa at the school.

In the early 2000s Cheng conducted research to recreate the five-string pipa, which was lost in the 8th century in China, with the current pipa having only four strings. For her work she won major awards from Women in Music, the Arts Council of England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Throughout the years Cheng has been active in performing at various concerts and on special occasions and in collaborating with musicians from different genres and countries. She also co-founded the UK Chinese Ensemble, which performs throughout the UK and the rest of Europe on occasions such as Chinese Spring Festival when tens of thousands of people gather in Trafalgar Square, London, to watch the annual grand show.

Cheng's most recent collaboration was with Psappha Ensemble of Manchester in its 'Composing for …' project early this year, during which six young composers worked with her to create new compositions for the pipa. The six pieces were released on July 28.

"I felt very proud that I was the only female musician in this year's project, and the pipa is the only non-Western instrument," Cheng said. "It's a challenging and exciting experience for me.

"During workshops I explained the features of pipa and showed the composers how it is played, and worked with them to create music that combines elements of contemporary and classical, Chinese and Western."

Cheng had been busy preparing the 2023 London International Chinese Music Festival, which took place between Aug 20 and Aug 27. The event combined a collection of concerts, academic exchanges and a summer school focused on traditional Chinese musical instruments.

"Three decades have flown by since I first came to London, and I have taught hundreds of students," Cheng said. "A lot of them were foreigners who show great appreciation toward Chinese civilization.

"I enjoy what I am doing. I simply feel the joy when watching them progress in their skills and understanding of Chinese music."