The movie "A Hundred Birds and a Phoenix" about the smith seems to open a floodgate, and the mood of the wandering craftsmen wandering in the vast countryside in the new era is poured out, and they are woven in the fading rural civilization, and the craftsmanship and dignity they have kept for a lifetime are also deprived little by little. "Panic beachhead said panic, zero Ding Yang sighed zero Ding", the film's emotional rendering further confirmed the fate of the craftsmen who were about to be eliminated, and it seemed that only such a fate was their final tragic ending.
The development of Zhou Jiaban in recent years is reversing this tragic fate.
Known as the Pine Forest Horn and the Zhou Jia Na Class, the Zhou Jia Class is a Chinese folk blowing music class with the Chinese wind music master Zhou Zhengyu and other Zhou clan members as the main members of the Lingbi Yinji Pine Forest Village in Anhui Province. According to reports, the Zhoujiaban has been formed and developed for 600 years since the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Lingbi Yinji Zhoujiaban stood out in many classes in the vast rural areas of Anhui, Suzhou, Lu and Henan, and became a representative local class group, and the inheritance musicians clearly recorded in the family genealogy have been seven generations. With the ancestral motto of "pleasing the people in the prosperous world, protecting oneself in a chaotic world, having a skill, and not being afraid of honor and humiliation", as of now, there are more than 100 people in the whole clan, who are old and young.
The fifth generation of the master of the class, Zhou Benming
In May 2014, the "Pine Forest Horn" with Zhoujiaban as the core inheritance system was selected as a national intangible cultural heritage. In July 2017, Zhou Benming, the fifth generation of senior class leader, led zhou jiaban on the first european special tour, holding 7 special concerts and a workshop in 5 countries, with an audience of nearly 100,000 people. British BBC host Andrew McGregor said: "Zhou Jiaban is a band that mainly plays at weddings and funerals, and they express ancient folk traditions in a lively and unrestrained way... What I didn't expect was that their music had an amazing energy..." The British Library recorded a special concert by Zhou Jiaban throughout the process, which was included in the collection of the World Traditional Music List.
On September 12, Zhou Jiaban held a press conference for a tour to the United States at the Zhengyi Temple Theater Building in Beijing, which will last for one month, spanning seven states in the United States, and will have 17 events. Zhou Jiaban will also enter the Chicago World Music Festival and the Kennedy Center for the Arts. According to Zhou Benming, Zhou Jiaban is also expected to enter Harvard University during this tour.
Zhou Jiaban's upcoming tour to the United States this time is the fifth generation of heirs Zhou Benxiang, Zhou Benling, Zhou Zhonghua, Zhou Benfu, Zhou Benjin, Zhang Surong, the sixth generation of inheritors Zhou Jiyong, plus the head of the class Mr. Zhou Benming himself, a total of eight people. Among them, the elderly Zhou Benxiang is nearly seventy years old and is the old artist with the most complete inheritance of skills in Zhou Jiaban. Zhou Zhonghua, Zhou Benling, Zhang Surong and Zhou Jiyong were the original team members of last year's European tour. Weekly principal payment and weekly principal are the latest additions this year. Their team, with an average age of fifty, is about to start a one-month tour in a foreign country.
At the media exchange meeting before the performance began, Zhou Benming talked about the existence of craftsmen in China's vast countryside as the most important components of China's rural civilization. "Greeting births, sending people to death, getting married, birthdays, festivals... Every important link in life, without the na na is not formal, na na is like the current marriage certificate, giving them legitimacy. Zhou Benming talked about the respect received by the older generation of craftsmen in the village, "When you come to invite the craftsmen, the filial piety and grandchildren are to respectfully kneel down and say a word of please. He also said that now the smiths are getting less and less attention, and everyone likes to call the song and dance troupe for red and white happy events, and there is no longer a need for the smiths.
The "Chinese Yuanqi ZhouJia Class" advocated by Zhou Benming is extracted and structured from the family inheritance, with the main performance of the pipe flute and the gong and drum as the accompaniment, which can concentrate on the special concert that embodies the artistic characteristics of blowing and percussion. Without the use of sound equipment, the high-pitched loudness of the scream also reaches the heart.
In the middle of the stage on September 12 was a table of eight immortals, which was filled with folk wind instruments such as gongs, drums, and cymbals. The "Eight Immortals Table" is one of the traditional Chinese artists and an indispensable arrangement for the Zhou family class to play in the folk ceremonial field seat shed. In the anhui-Sulu-Yu junction area, whenever there is a red and white happy event, the musicians of the gong na blowing and playing music class are invited to sit around the eight immortal tables set up in the main house, and constantly change their instruments to play in line with the progress of different ceremonies and festivals, and this eight immortals table may carry the joy of new life or the sadness of the past. On the same day, the eight artists who will go to the United States brought many of their masterpieces to everyone, including "Greeting", "Worship the Teacher", "Birds and Phoenix", "Wild Goose Falling on the Beach" and so on.
At the beginning of the performance, the high-pitched and loud voice of the sigh sounded first, and the sheng, flute, gong and drum were played one after another, and the ancient Zhengyi Ancestral Hall Theater Building was no longer so distant and dignified in an instant. "Greeting the Birth" is played by Xiao Bronze Na as the lead instrument, telling the nervous anxiety of the class owner when he is looking forward to the birth of his son and the joy of his heart after winning Takako, and various instruments simulate the joy of relatives and friends around the newborn. One of the best plays of Zhou Jiaban is "blowing big drama", and the blowing and percussion music in northern China all play "click opera", that is, the performance of simulated opera singing. Zhou Jiaban opera musicians played a multi-role stage "blowing drama", using small copper whistles, pipes, handles and other blowing instruments to simulate the singing voice and recitation of opera characters such as Sheng, Dan, and Jing in the opera.
In "Wild Geese Falling on the Beach", the musicians of the Zhoujia class each hold a big goose in their hands, and the "human" glyph team stands in the center of the stage, and the sound of the big goose can be simulated. "Yanluo Beach" is a classic song of Theo Na, the music tune originated from the Shaanxi folk, generally in the memorial to the deceased relatives with the big yo na to play, Zhou Jiaban scene with a large trumpet group simulated flock of geese flying down, the tune is sad and desolate.