Patty Chan is an erhu player, educator and author of “Bridging the Gap”, the first English instructional book for erhu players. She talked to me about Chinese traditional music, demonstrated different types of instruments in the erhu family with some beautiful music, including “River of Sorrow” and spoke about her work expanding the repertoire of the Toronto Chinese orchestra by collaborating with Canadian composers. The complete transcript is here, along with links to the video, bonus episodes and podcast.

Patty Chan: ““Initially, it was bringing music back from Asia and trying to play the music here, but then gradually I thought we're in Canada. Why not try to encourage Canadian composers to write for these instruments and for the orchestra and see how we can develop our own identity? And I think that has possibly captured the attention of some people in China and Asia where they think you have your own music. Well, that's interesting. Let's hear what the music is like. And so I think that's really important for us to continue developing in North America, not just always rely on Asia.”

In my interview with the kora player, singer and songwriter Sophie Lukacs we hear her very unique and personal story and also learn about this beautiful instrument. This is the full transcript of the interview, and includes links to the video and podcast. She gives us an introduction to the challenges of playing and mastering the kora, and how different it was from her violin studies. She talks about the challenges of immigrating to Canada from Hungary as a child, and then of her discovery of the kora.