Recently, Xu Fan,a 17-year-old girl in Changshu has won the golden prize in Singapore International Chinese Music Competition.As the only contestant from Suzhou,Xu Fan has given the performance of konghou,an ancient Chinese harp.
Konghou, also known as kanhou,became extinct sometime in the Ming Dynasty. However, it has been revived in the 20th century as a double bridge harp. Xu Fan fell in love with this ancient instrument at first sight on her Chinese language textbook.
Xu Fan made her decision to learn to play konghou in 2015.However, at that time, few people played this kind of instrument and even less people could tutor her either in Suzhou or Shanghai. In the end, Xu Fan asked Wu Lin,professor of China National Traditional Orchestra to be her master.Now,Xu Fan has to go to Beijing by herself every two weeks to take her konghou lessons.
Xu Fan performed a famous konghou composition in Singapore International Chinese Music Competition.Besides the golden prize for ICMC,she also won another golden prize during this summer vacation. Xu Fan said that hopefully she could be admitted to professional music academy to further the study on konghou and make her efforts to popularize this ancient instrument.
