An Evening with GAO HONG & IGNACIO MONTEVERDE

The Cedar Presents

An Evening with GAO HONG and IGNACIO MONTEVERDE - Pipa Meets Flamenco Guitar

Friday, May 3, 2024 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM

All Ages

Seated

$25 Advance, $30 Day of Show

Originally, confirmed for Friday, February 23rd (all tickets from this show will be honored) The Cedar is grateful to have the opportunity to present this new date Friday, May 3rd with Chinese pipa virtuoso Gao Hong and flamenco guitarist Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde and their very special project.

This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our .

For Cedar presented shows, online ticket sales typically end one hour before the door time, and then, based on availability, tickets will be available at the door.

Chinese pipa virtuoso Gao Hong and flamenco guitarist Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde met for the first time three days before they were scheduled to record their album, Alondra, at Abbey Road Studios in London. Taking on the bold and blithe freedom of the skylark, they flew together from ancient Asian dynasties, through the Thar desert to Andalusia, harmoniously combining cultures as the East meets West. The Cedar is honored to celebrate the release of this special project.

“My concept for such collaborations is to blend each other’s music together. I want the music we create to bring people together. On this album, our music is not specifically from China or Argentina. It combines elements and musical languages from both of our roots into a new, one-of-a-kind musical expression.” – Gao Hong

Gao Hong’s life has been filled with hard work and struggles but also joy and happiness. Gao’s father was a government official and landowner, who had been blacklisted and sent to a rural area to learn from the peasants, so Gao's mother held the family together as a music teacher. To help the strain on the family budget, at just 12 years old, Gao left her family in the ancient Chinese capital of Luoyang and moved 400 miles away to Heibei Province to begin her musical career with the provincial song and dance troupe. This was hard for a girl of such a young age but she knew it was an opportunity for her amidst the chaos created by the Cultural Revolution.

Once settled in her new surroundings, Gao found herself squeezing in extra hours of pipa practice in the furnace room in the early hours of the morning, so as not to wake her fellow colleagues. After a while she gained the nickname ‘little black kitten’, as when she smiled, the flecks of coal soot would form tiny wrinkles around her eyes, giving her a cat-like appearance.

Aged 22, Gao went on to become a student at China's premier school of music, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied with pipa master Lin Shicheng, and later graduated.

Since moving to the United States, she has performed at the Lincoln Center Festival, Carnegie Hall, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Smithsonian, and at festivals in Paris, Caen, Milan and Perth. She has presented concertos for the pipa with the Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, China National Traditional Orchestra, among others. In 2017, she became the first Chinese musician to play the National Anthem at an NBA basketball game whilst playing pipa for the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.

Gao has since received numerous top awards and honors in China and U.S. In 2005, Gao became the first traditional musician to be awarded the prestigious Bush Artist Fellowship, and as a 2018 Sally Award winner, she was honoured at the Ordway Center for her commitment to the arts. In 2019, she became the only musician in any genre to win five McKnight Artist Fellowships for Performing Musicians. She is also the author of the first pipa method book written in English which was published and distributed worldwide by Hal Leonard.

In 2021, ARC Music re-released the highly acclaimed album Hunting Eagles Catching Swans featuring Gao Hong and her mentor, the late, great pipa master Lin Shicheng. The album won two Gold Medals from the Global Music Awards (Best Album and Instrumental) and was Songlines magazine pick for "The Best New Albums from Around the World".

In 2022, Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul proclaimed April 3rd, 2022, to be ‘Gao Hong Day in the City of St. Paul’ in honor of Gao’s milestone concert at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts - 50 Years of Making Music with Friends. This concert was featured on America’s most popular classical music radio program – American Public Media’s ‘Performance Today’®, hosted by Fred Child.

She received two more Gold Medals from the Global Music Awards in 2023, this time for ‘Best Duo’ and ‘Best Instrumentalist’, for her highly acclaimed album, Terri Kunda (House of Friendship), which she recorded with Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate.

Gao is now a Board member for the American Composers Forum and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, a Recording Academy Voting Member for the Grammys. For the Recording Academy/Grammy’s Chicago/Midwest Chapter she serves as Governor for the board and Committee Co-Chair for the Songwriters and Composers Wing. She also teaches at Carleton College, where she is Director of the Chinese Music Ensemble, and is Guest Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music and other conservatories in China.

“For over 50 years. Gao Hong’s music has inspired and moved countless numbers of people around the globe. As one of the premier pipa players in the world, Gao Hong’s illustrious career is filled with accomplishments as a musician, composer and educator.” – Amy Klobuchar, United States Senator

To learn more about Gao Hong:

• • Visit her website here

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, into an Argentinian/Italian family, c started playing the guitar aged six. Inspired by his cultural surroundings, he played with his siblings as a family pastime, learning Argentinian folk songs and tango music.

His passion for flamenco started, aged 9, when he discovered the works of the Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. His desire to pursue the flamenco genre eventually took him to London in 2013, where he became musically connected with Spain and the rest of the world.

Ignacio is now an acclaimed London-based flamenco guitarist, producer and recording engineer. He graduated as a choir master at Buenos Aires Conservatoire in 2013, and has since collaborated with a number of performers including Ahmed Mukhtar, Baluji Shrivastav OBE and Eduardo Niebla. He has featured in live appearances at BBC Radio 3, London Festival of Baroque Music, Indian National Theatre and the Iraq Babylon Great Theatre, amongst others.

In 2019, he was awarded the LATIN UK AWARD for Musician of the Year, and in 2020 was assigned as a member of the Guild of Musicians & Singers. This same year he was awarded an honoris causa by the J H Pestalozzi University, at the level of Doctor of the University. This was for his outstanding contribution to world music, both as performer and audio engineer.

Ignacio has produced an extensive array of recordings, including a number of albums at the iconic Abbey Roads Studios, in collaboration with the British Museum, Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

He has previously worked with the Latin American Baroque Festival of Buenos Aires and other festivals such as Ketevan World Sacred Music Festival (India) and London Strings Festival (UK).

To learn more about Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde:

• • Visit his website here

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis, United States