BIOGRAPHY
Jiang Nan was born in Quanzhou, Fujian province, in the south of China, the land of “mountains and water” so-called… “Jiang Nan”. She grows up to the rehearsals of the revolutionary opera troupe where his parents dance and sing and the municipal theater was her ordinary playground. She started to learn an instrument. This will be the 21-string guzheng zither. After having squeezed her fingers for a few years under the guidance of home teachers, she has integrate college classes with schedules designed for future professional musicians and dancers. It will be then the Shanghai Conservatory, prestigious and demanding, and finally the section of musicology of the University of Xiamen.
南
NAN,
this is my first name
and JIANG,
my familiy name
(in China, the order is reversed)
Call me NAN!
After graduating and becoming a teacher at the Xiamen Institute of Performing Arts, the young virtuoso performed regularly in China and Taiwan, alone or in small ensembles, and won a few medals in performance competitions. She will be the soloist when the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra gives a concerto for guzheng written by He Zhanhao, famous composer of several pieces that everybody in China knows how to whistle the first bars. That day, the composer himself directed the orchestra.
For more than ten years, Jiang Nan has been rooted in France where she gives many solo and ensemble concerts: Théâtre du Capitole (Toulouse), Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), Arabesque Festival (Montpellier), Rio Loco Festival (Toulouse) … (Toulouse)…
This new land has also corresponded to another way of making music. Through encounters where baroque music, tango, flamenco, oriental maqâm, traditional Turkish or Balkan music have stumbled upon her art, Jiang Nan has embarked on a singular musical journey that, alongside her tradition to which she remains backed, becames her main direction.
Yungchen Lhamo, Wang Xinxin, Les Passions, Walid Ben Selim, Serge Lopez, Lakhdar Hanou or Marie Sigal… lasting or ephemeral collaborations have been numerous. Mirages des sons du Sud, Tenza, Ensemble Suonatori, Ne fût-ce qu’en Chine ou Orient Express, shows and creations too. Whether she composes, arranges, sings, improvises or interprets, whether her sonic universe is that of the Far East or the West, whether she plays alone or as a whole, Jiang Nan’s art always has that strength expressive striking, this power of breath and purity of the trait that are his signature.
