Artistic and writing consultants
Biography
Wu Ganbo graduated from the folk-music department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He studied erhu with Zhou Hao, Lu Xiutang, Chen Junying, Yang Yusen, and folk musician Sun Wenming, and studied Chinese music theory with Hu Dengtiao, Xia Ye, and Ye Dong. After graduation, he worked with the Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble and the China National Traditional Orchestra in Beijing.
Wu moved to Hong Kong in 1981, taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and helped establish the Hong Kong Society for Chinese Music. The University of Hong Kong’s Centre of Asian Studies named him an honorary research fellow in July 1991; he moved to Vancouver in 1993.
His books and edited volumes included A Draft History of Chinese Music in Twentieth-century Hong Kong, A Century of Chinese Music in Taiwan, Biographies of Twentieth-century Chinese Musicians, Biographies of a Century of Chinese Musicians in Taiwan, a coedited collection of Sun Wenming’s erhu works, and Foundations of Traditional Erhu.
His collection Chinese People and Chinese Music included critical essays such as New Music and the Improvement of Chinese Music and A Critique of Chinese Music Thought.
Professional areas
- Erhu
- University teaching
- Music history