(1) Marvellous Shaolin Kung Fu
composer: Wang Huiran, Wang Hongyi

The kungfu of Shaolin Temple is world famous. This piece takes Henan folk music as material and introduces the form of duet for the liuqin and the pipa. With high virtuosity of the two plucked instruments, the composition describes the scenes of the Shaolin monks practising martial arts, fist-fighting, pursuing and attacking, and demonstrates that kungfu allover the world originated from the Shaolin Temple. The marvellous Shaolin kungfu has been and will be handed down through the generations.

(2) Feelings towards the Songshan Mountain
composer: Wang Huiran, Wang Hongyi

The Songshan Mountain was called the Central Mountain. Situated in Dengfeng County,

Henan Province, it is one of the five famous mountains in China. On the mountain stands the Central Mountain Temple and the Shaolin Temple, which has been a mecca for chivalry through the ages. The composition depicts the marvellous scenery of the mountain and the ancient Shaolin Temple, and expresses the people's infinite reverence for and their memories of the past heroes for their deeds.

(3) The Flight of the Bumble-Bee
composer: Rimsky-Korsakov

It was originally an interlude in an opera composed in 1900. Later, it was arranged into various virtuoso solos for the violin, cello, flute, trumpet and the piano. Yet the arrangement for the liuqin and the pipa has another distinct sentiment. The composition is a characteristic of perpetual mobility.

The fast, chromatic progression imitates the humming of the flying bee. The music alternates between strength and weakness, visualising the flight of the bee, sometimes near, sometimes far.

(4) Butterfly Longing for Flowers (Die Lian Hua)
composer: Zhao Kaisheng
arranger: Ma Shenglong

This piece was originally a kaipian of Suzhou tanci. Suzhou tanci (Suzhou story-telling) is popular in Jiangnan (south of the lower reaches of Yangtze River). It is sung in the Suzhou dialect accompanied by the pipa and the sanxian. Kaipian (opening song) is a kind of short prose sung before the formal performance of tanci. Its contents is entirely separate from the tanci. With excitement and passion, "Butterfly Longing for Flowers" expresses the people's deep memory of the martyrs.

(5) Music on the Moonlit River
composer: Wang Huiran

This composition is intended to express the profound conception of the famous poem" The Pipa's Lament", written by Bai Juyi, a celebrated poet in the Tang Dynasty. The poem describes the sad story of a woman pipa player, whom the poet met while sending off his friends on a pleasure-boat. This piece is divided into four parts : I) The Moon Over The River portrays the scene of seeing friends off on a night in Jiujiang and the merging of the sky and water at the moment of parting; 2) Grievous Complaint,which depicts the pipa player's sorrow when each sweep suggested love repressed and unlocked the secrets of her heavy heart; 3) Turbulent Days, which expresses the wounds and the misfortunes that the Revolt of An Lushan and Shi Shiming brought to the people; 4) Leaving Away, which conveys the artistic concept of a dead silence ensued from the East and West, all one sees is the white autumn moon in midstream.

(6) Jubilant Tianshan
composer: Wang Huiran

Tianshan is a huge Central Asia mountain range which traverses the middle of Xinjiang. At the foot of the mountain is a boundless grassland with plenty of water and lush greenery, on which the hardworking Uygur people lived for generations. With graceful melody and rhythm, this piece displays the jubilant and ardent scene of the Uygur people beating the tambourines while singing and dancing.

(7) Kapok Blooming
composer: Wang Huiran
orchestration: Lin Weihua

The Dai nationality in the region of Xishuang Banna, Yunnan Province, is a minor nationality known for their singing and dancing. Song and dance are indispensable on festivals like the "Water-Splashing" and the "Gan ba" (a festival to celebrate harvest and product-exchange) as well as "Chuan Gu-niang" (a public meeting for young courting couples). This composition uses the tone of Dai wind music as material. With a strong rhythm and graceful melody, the music depicts the scene of Dai people singing and dancing, celebrating the blooming of the spring flower, Kapok.

(8) The Moonlight Night on the Flowery Spring River
arranged by Qin Pengzhang
Loo Zhongrong

With a simple melody, smooth rhythm, exquisite orchestration and meticulous performance, this piece vividly describes the fascinating scenery of the river in the moonlight in springtime. The musical theme repeats with a variation of the "hewei" (partial repetition of the closing part of a melody). The whole composition is an elegant landscape drawn with fine brushwork and light colours.

(9) (10) (11) Sunset Clouds over Xishuang Banna
composer: Zhou Chenglong

Xishuang Banna is situated in the south of China and borders Burma and Laos. The scenery there is picturesque and the people, honest and warmhearted. It is a region permeated with tropical appeal. The pipa concerto "Sunset Clouds over Xishuang Banna" consists of three movements. The first movement, Sunset Clouds, describes the colourful scenery of Xishuang Banna in the setting sun's glow and the happy life of the Dai people. The second movement, Love Song, expresses the melodious and beautiful singing spreading out from the depths of the bamboo forest under a curtain of darkness. That is the love song which the Dai young men and women sing, the music exquisitely expresses the affection of the young women and the passion of the young men. The third movement, Bonfire, portrays the happy crowds of people dancing hand-in-hand around the bonfire to the beats of elephant-foot drums and gongs. The movement begins with an unconstrained and vibrant dance, which is transformed into a lyrical section in triple time in the middle. Finally the music comes to an end in a jubilant and ardent atmosphere.