Wu Di
Pipa soloist with the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra.
Wu Di is pipa soloist with the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra (Colourful Guizhou Troupe), one of the leading ethnic-instrumental ensembles in southwest China. The pipa — a pear-shaped four-stringed lute whose name dates back two thousand years — is one of the great solo instruments of the Chinese tradition, capable of everything from delicate plucked melody to the percussive battle-scene textures of pieces like Ambush from Ten Sides.
The pipa entered the Chinese imagination through poetry as much as through music: Bai Juyi's Pipa Song from the Tang dynasty remains one of the most beloved poems in the Chinese canon, and its imagery — of moonlight, the river, exile and music — has shaped how the instrument is heard ever since.
In July 2025 Wu Di performed Qin Pengzhang and Luo Zhongrong's celebrated arrangement of Moonlight over the Spring River (Chunjiang Hua Yue Ye) with the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra and The Australia Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall — a performance praised in critical reviews for its evocation of the piece's atmospheric subtlety, where the pipa carries the listener through the unfolding scenes of a river evening: the moonrise, the boatman's song, the quiet ripples on the water.
Further biographical detail is not yet available in English-language sources; we plan to expand this profile as material becomes available.
A performance praised for evoking the piece's atmospheric subtlety.
On Wu Di
