"...an exquisite world of sound..."

Jewish Independent
November 19, 2004

"...shimmers gorgeously with Tung's precise show(wo)manship."

Sing Out . The Folk Song Magazine
Derek Beres
September 22, 2005

"Orchid Ensemble defines the very essence of 'Canadian music'. The album criss-crosses both time and space, spanning over 2,000 years of cultural inspiration and influence, and reaching across China, India, and Persia."

Heidi McKenzie
Whole Note Magazine
March 2006

"...a wonderful mix of timbres.not an archeological trip, but a journey of the imagination--the modes and rhythms of the regions serve to inspire impassioned playing from marimbist Jonathan Bernard, erhu player Lan Tung, and (zheng player) Han..."

Far Eastern Audio Review
Mack Hagood
December 5, 2004

"I find both of Orchid Ensemble's recordings to be of exceptional quality. The compositions are innovative and a rich delight for all of the senses. Allow this group to leave you intoxicated."

The Vancouver, Canada-based Orchid Ensemble offer a unique perspective to Chinese music apart from other

groups of their type. Extending and expounding on ancient traditions, but not necessarily contemporizing

them with modern percussion or beats, the trio instead tends to extend established forms with

improvisational ideas, acute listening skills, a flair for understated drama, and a sharing of sonic tones

unheard in this kind of ethnic fusion. The bowed two-string erhu played by Lan Tung is teamed with the

zither-like zheng wielded by Mei Han, while percussionist Jonathan Bernard concentrates on the wooden

marimba. They achieve a collective style that is beauteous, sensual, deep, and culturally rich without

violating any traditional aesthetic.

There's a suggested suite form utilized during "Lonely Crows Playing in the Winter Stream," featuring

telepathic tempo changes, and an official three-segment piece entitled "Heartland," which moves from spacy,

cerebral long tones to a wafting waltz and a minimal two-note theme that is occasionally deconstructed and

decayed. For most of the recording, Tung's soaring, singing erhu leads out, with the zheng either punctuating

and occasionally playing in unison, as the marimba and small percussion sounds act as supportive devices.

"Lantern Riddle" most closely represents this division of labor. But the ensemble pulls some rabbits out of the

hat, as on the choral-like, cascading, sped-up, stopped, then racing folkish triality of "Fishermen's Song"; the

powerful, horse image-laden "The Gallop"; the spirited country-animated "Harvest Season"; and the languid,

romantic Mongolian folk melody "Meeting in the Yurt." At times Bernard can extract a mysterious shading on

hisown for "Shepherd Girl" opposite Tung's curious erhu, while the zheng sets a spatial, pure Asian tone on

"New Year's Eve."

A wonderful combination of spirit, connectedness, and sonic timbres, the Orchid

Ensemble deserve wide attention on their own terms and integrity of purpose. They stand unique unto

themselves. ~ Michael G. Nastos

"It's a haunting, serene masterpiece which effectively showcases the deep talent pool that Orchid Ensemble boasts."

North Shore News
Jan-Christian Sorensen
August 11, 2000

"Heartland possesses an appropriate title since this CD oozes heart and soul with its delicate collection of traditional and contemporary Chinese music."

Patty-Lynne Herlevi
Cranky Crow World Music
World Music Central
summer, 2003

The Orchid Ensemble finds mountains of inspiration

By Alexander Varty, January 11, 2011

The Alps have their devotees, as do the Himalayas; those who have found their way to far Patagonia might make a case for Mount Fitzroy, as well. But when it comes to lofty peaks, few have been more extensively celebrated than China’s Mount Huangshan. Subject of legend, song, and millions of painted scrolls, the fabled “Yellow Mountain” is what we think of when we imagine the Chinese landscape: a soaring granite crag picturesquely decorated by pine, bamboo, and flowering plum.

Topping out at only 1,800 metres, Huangshan is a mere molehill next to, say, Mont Blanc or Everest. Yet ascending its heights can still be an adventure, as the Orchid Ensemble’s Lan Tung found out on a recent pilgrimage to this most scenic of sites. Rather than trek up on foot, she opted for the comfort of a cable-car ride—but when the pulleys froze mid-climb, during a howling windstorm, she still had a few anxious minutes.

“It was scary,” relates the Taiwan-born erhu virtuoso, on the line from the East Vancouver home she shares with percussionist Jonathan Bernard. “But when we reached the top, we had an amazing view. Because it was really windy, the clouds were flying very fast from below me, up to my face, brushing on my face. By that time we’d already been in China for maybe five days, and finally we got what we were hoping for.”

Tung’s no storm chaser. Instead, she and videographer Nenad Stefanovic were seeking raw material for the Orchid Ensemble’s latest multimedia presentation, Mountain High River Flow …without end. After returning to Canada, Tung sent their footage to composers Rui Shi Zhuo and Dorothy Chang, who then wrote pieces inspired by Huangshan’s rugged beauty. She also delivered the videos to the Flicker Art Collaboratory’s Aleksandra Dulic and Kenneth Newby. Working alongside Dulic’s students, they turned those images into paintings, then animated the paintings using computer technology. Their collective aim is to render a new, interdisciplinary view of topography that artists have been studying for millennia.

Exotic concert evokes the Silk Road
Juno-nominated Orchid Ensemble combines traditional tunes and newly created works

by Christopher Moore, Globe and Mail
July 28, 2010

Exotic concert evokes the Silk Road

Juno-nominated Orchid Ensemble combines traditional tunes and newly created works

by Christopher Moore, Globe and Mail

July 28, 2010

With close to 100 concerts jam-packed into a two-week period, the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival offers music lovers an opportunity to sate their thirst for high-quality, live performance at practically any time of day. The most nocturnal concerts are organized in the basement of St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and the atmosphere, despite the lack of air conditioning but perhaps as a result of the presence of warm food and cold beer, encourages audience members to “chill out” after a long day on the festival circuit.

On Monday evening, this collective chilling was abetted by a concert given by Vancouver-based Orchid Ensemble. Combining inspirations drawn equally from world music and the contemporary classical scene, this three-part, Juno-nominated group plied their musical wares on traditional Chinese string instruments such as the zheng and erhu, along with a broad array of percussive toys, including marimbas, bells, cymbals and drums.

The concert, entitled The Road to Kashgar, brought together both arrangements of traditional tunes and newly composed works to evoke the atmosphere and traditions of the multicultural mosaic that once thrived along the expansive trade routes of the ancient Silk Road. From simple adaptations of classic Chinese melodies to a musical revisiting of the flourishing ancient Jewish culture of Kaifeng, or Canadian pieces revelling in the mash-up of Asian and Western instruments and cultures, Orchid Ensemble gently conjured up alternate and diverse worlds of time and place.

The most effective pieces on the program were the simpler arrangements, such as the song entitled Hujia, which is based on the poetry of Cai Wenji, a Han Dynasty writer and composer born in 177 AD. Ensemble member and erhu performer Lan Tung may not have the voice of a Beijing opera star, but her humble and unaffected recitation of this ancient poetry, discreetly enveloped by the tinkle of Tibetan cymbals and the vibrating shimmer of the zheng’s silken strings, set the exotic tone for this short concert.

Likewise, the ensemble’s arrangement of a Bengali folk song, replete with Persian and Indian influences, rocked the basement. Here, Tung momentarily explored her inner Jimi Hendrix while percussionist Jonathan Bernard coolly extemporized an elaborate solo on the marimba.

"Orchid Ensemble mixes East and West "

Sarah Caufield, The Peak
January 26, 2004

"My companion was not sure of what to expect, and so was surprised by the beauty and harmony of this music. In fact she was so overcome at one point that she was moved to tears by the soulfulness expressed by these performers and their music."

Huntington Concert Series - International Music Day
October 2003

"Orchid Ensemble takes its audience on an musical world tour"

Amit Shertzer
The Justice
Waltham, MA
10/26/04

"The concert was attended by a sizeable audience, whose enthusiatic response to the performance confirmed the wisdom of sponsoring concerts of world musics...Orchid Ensemble evidenced the creative and distinctive appeal of musical and cultural blending.."

Dr. Joseph Lam
The Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments at the
University of Michigan
Inaugural Concert of the Virginia Howard Lectures
Fall 2003

"In the end, the Large Dalton crowd was enthralled by the exotic nature of the music and the ability of the Orchid Ensemble to transcend cultural differences to bring them a thoroughly enjoyable musical experience."

The Orchid Ensemble finds mountains of inspiration

By Jonny Wakefield

“Everything is precious on the mountain,” said Lan Tung, lead composer of the Orchid Ensemble, a Vancouver based trio of classically-trained Chinese musicians. She’s talking about Huangshan, or the Yellow Mountains of China’s Anhui province. Huangshan is the subject of a multimedia collaboration between a team of UBC-O animation students and a number of traditional Chinese musicians from Vancouver.

The performance, Mountain high, River flow (…without end), takes place at the Roundhouse Theatre on January 15 and will feature animations in the style of Chinese brush painting. It will be set to music provided by Lan’s Orchid Ensemble and a number of other musical acts.

The project is a multimedia re-imagining of one of the most iconic images in Chinese art. “The Yellow Mountain [is] one of the most famous subjects in Chinese [landscape] painting,” said Lan. “People searching for spiritual purpose would usually wander off and go to the mountains.” Artists like Li Bai rhapsodized about the mountain’s spiritual qualities and the mountain even spawned its own school of landscape painting.

The whole team did not have the opportunity to wander around the mountain looking for inspiration; that job fell on Lan. “We went to [the mountain] and we did research and filming,” she said. “From there, the animations were drawn to capture the spirit of the mountain.” The Vancouver-based composers and UBC-O animators worke-d remotely with each other, sharing notes and meeting occasionally.

The result is a flowing image in the style of Chinese ink painting, with traditional instruments melding with cutting edge technology. On the mountain, Lan found a similar mix of old and new. While the mountain today is one of the most popular tourism destinations in China, she found that modern technology, such as cable cars, have not fundamentally altered the nature of the mountain and the people who travel it.

“All the people working on the mountain bring everything up,” Lan explained. “Even your toilet paper is carried by people up the mountain.” The mountain is especially famous for its well-travelled steps; some 60,000 have been carved into the sides of cliff faces.

Mountain high, River flow (without end…), features the Orchid Ensemble, music by Rui Shi Zhuo, Lan Tung and Dorthy Chang, and the work of UBC-O animation students and faculty. It will run January 15 at the Roundhouse Theatre. For more information, visit orchidensemble.com.

"Trio interprets Asian Musical traditions with fresh beauty"

Roger Levesque
Edmonton Journal
March 2006

"Hothouse Flower"

John Chacona-Erie Times
March 2006

"Orchid’s Road still evolving"

By Alexander Varty
Georgia Straight
Publish Date: 15-Sep-2005

"The music of Lan Tung"

Wendy Chen
The Canadian Immigrant Magazine
August 2005

"From fingers to hands to hearts - that’s the quest of Orchid Ensemble, a group of diverse virtuosic musicians brought together through their passion for this delicate and sensitive art form - music which weaves a tapestry of magical sounds of East and West. Orchid Ensemble provides an exotic form of music full of precision and beauty."

Rosemary Phillips, 2003

"You can shut your eyes and go somewhere you've never been before…it leaves listeners spell-bound."

Jennifer McLarty
News Leader
February 28, 2001

"Flower Power"

Errol Nazareth
Eye Weekly, Toronto
Feb 2005

"Cultures Connect on the Silk Road"

Jessica Werb
Globe and mail
Sept 2005

"Artistic Flowering"

Alexander Varty- Georgia Straight
Publish date: May 25, 2006