Like pearls falling into a jade plate

WHEN Wu Man arrived in New Haven1, Connecticut, from Beijing in 1990 she spoke no English and ★gambled on[1] surviving with the help of her pipa, a traditional lute-like Chinese instrument. She has succeeded (A) （triumph）, working her way from New York's Chinatown to Carnegie Hall2, where she gives her debut recital on April 6th. The pipa is a sonorous, four-stringed, pear-shaped instrument held upright on the lap. Its strings used to be silk but are now steel, which resonates better. The fake fingernails on Ms Wu's right hand ★pluck[2] the strings, while her left hand fingers the ★frets[3]. （1）She produces an (B) (astonish) range of colours and moods from a 2,000-year-old instrument which produces a sound, observed a poet from the Tang dynasty, like “pearls falling into a jade plate”.

Ms Wu is a ★virtuoso[4] interpreter of traditional music, creating (C) （haunt） exotic waves of sound with ★pizzicatos and tremolos[5] (the plucking of one string with all five fingers consecutively). But (D) （evoke） of dropping pearls soon fade to Jimi Hendrix3. During her time in America, （2）Ms Wu has daringly expanded the pipa's range, playing jazz, bluegrass4 and Bollywood5 with eclectic instrumentalists—and inspiring (E) (number) works from prominent composers.

The pipa can sound gently lyrical or (F) （aggress） modern, which is why, says Ms Wu, it attracts such composers as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, all of whom have written for her. She was the first to partner the pipa with an endongo (an eight-stringed Ugandan instrument), an Appalachian banjo and a string quartet6. She was also, she says, the first to play jazz on the pipa.

All this happened after she arrived in America. Young Chinese musicians are now ubiquitous in American and European conservatories, competitions and concert halls, but during China's cultural revolution the performance of Western music was greatly restricted. Traditional instruments, however, were (G) （courage）, and Ms Wu, born in 1964 in Hangzhou, began studying the pipa when she was nine.

She entered the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music (where she heard Western music for the first time) and became the first (H) （receive） of a masters degree in the pipa. She was awarded a ★tenured[6] faculty position. But her curiosity about the West proved (I) （resist）. Colleagues who had emigrated to the United States warned her that there was no interest in Chinese traditional music, （3）but, undaunted, she packed seven instruments (including pipas, a zither and a dulcimer) and set off.

During the first two difficult years she learnt English and cried a lot. She joined other Chinese musicians and began performing in New York's Chinatown, (J) （rehearse） in the basement of a dry-cleaner. （4）American musicians would approach her after concerts, (K) （fascination）. David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet said that the first time he heard her play was like the first time he heard Jascha Heifetz, a master violinist.

Mr Harrington chose her to perform in the quartet's recent Bollywood- (L) （inspiration） recording because he wanted one person to create many different sounds. （5）Ms Wu, with her “large sonic vocabulary”, was uniquely qualified. She also attracted the attention of Yo Yo Ma, a cellist with whom she now frequently performs as a member of his Silk Road ★Ensemble[7].

Pipa players and audiences in China are also becoming more open minded; she caused (M) （exciting） when she performed in Beijing with the Kronos Quartet ten years ago. “That's my hope,” she says, “that （6）the next generation know there is another way for traditional instruments to survive.”

[QUIZ]
1. 用文中空白后括号内单词的适当（相关）形式填空（可以是动词、形容词及副词，注意时态、语态、比较级乃至派生词等）：
如：WHEN Wu Man ________(arrival) in New Haven, Connecticut, from Beijing in 1990 she spoke no English.此空白处应填arrived.

[NOTES]
[1]gamble v.以……为赌注，孤注一掷to do something that involves a lot of risk, and that will not succeed unless things happen the way you would like them to
gamble on
They're gambling on Johnson being fit for Saturday's game.
gamble something on something
Potter gambled everything on his new play being a hit.

[2]pluck v.弹拨to pull the strings of a musical instrument
pluck at
Someone was plucking at the strings of an old guitar.

[3]fret n.音品；安在某些弦乐器如吉他弹拨处的一个或多个隆起物one of the raised lines on the fretboard of a guitar etc

[4] virtuoso plural virtuosos
n. 技术超群的表演者（尤指音乐）someone who is a very skilful performer, especially in music:
violin virtuoso Stephane Grappelli
—virtuoso adjective [only before noun]
a virtuoso performance
a virtuoso pianist

[5] pizzicatos and tremolos 拨奏曲和颤音

[6]tenure
[UC]享有终身教授的权利 the right to stay permanently in a teaching job:
It's becoming increasingly difficult to acquire academic tenure.
—tenured adjective:
a tenured professor
a tenured position

[7]ensemble <法>全体, [音]合唱曲, 全体演出者

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