As a member of Yo-Yo Ma's acclaimed Silk Road Ensemble, the musician Wu Tong has had the opportunity to travel all over the world. But New York, where he will be awarded the China Institute's Musician of the Year award on Friday, holds a very particular place in his heart.

"In my mind, New York is like Tang Dynasty-era Chang'an," he said in an interview with China Daily. "It's very open, with different elements from so many cultures and countries. That's healthy. When you look at Chinese culture, it has absolutely been strongest during the periods in which it was most open. Openness makes a culture strong, and New York is that way. I feel very relaxed here."

Wu has applied that approach to his career at every step — first, when he rose to fame in China as the front man for folk rock band Lun Hui("Again") in the 1990s, and for the last decade as part of the Silk Road Ensemble, a collective of around 40 musicians and composers from more than 20 countries. Acclaimed for his ability to merge Western and Eastern influences, he has remained true to tradition with a heavy emphasis on classical Chinese instrumentation.

"I think music can communicate anything," he said. "People don't need a passport to travel around the world when they listen to music. It transcends language."

The same can be said of the ensemble's internal dynamic, he said.

"I've learned a lot over the past 12 years since I joined the ensemble, and it's a balance of learning how to work with different musicians from different backgrounds, cultures and languages," he said. "It might sound simple now, but it's been a long road and for a long time there were many instances in which it was difficult to communicate and be understood by others. But it changed my life, my creativity and how I think."

The experience has given him a thicker skin, he said.

"I do think it's a path for the brave and the adventurous. There are few role models to follow who have gone before in terms of this style, so you are searching for the way as you go. It's incredibly difficult but very worthwhile. It's made me much stronger as a Chinese musician."

Wu has always placed value in his heritage. "I've always had the thought in my mind that I have to sing what's in my blood," he said.

As the child of musicians in Beijing, Wu began studying the sheng, his primary instrument, at the age of 5. He entered the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music at 11, and won a number of national and international awards for his work with the sheng, a mouth-blown reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes. At the age of 19 he became China Central Traditional Music and Dance Company's youngest soloist, and toured internationally.

Around the same time, he began writing his own music, and founded the Lun Hui band with several friends from the conservatory.

"I wanted to talk about my life," he said. "I was at that age, and I wanted to speak about myself. We were inspired by Bon Jovi and Metallica but we never lost our traditional influences. I played sheng for the band and people were truly surprised when our first song really worked. I just wanted to experiment and be myself in a diferent way."

That song, On the Way to Wartime Yangzhou, a rock number with Song Dynastyera influences, netted the group a music contract in 1993.

Eventually Wu returned to his traditional roots, but with the Silk Road Ensemble he has had the opportunity to explore music from all over the world.

"There are actually many similar elements in the different styles of music," he said.

"Other musicians will say, ‘Oh, we have that in our music too,'or I'll notice something in their music from China."

He pointed to the technique of amplifying or simplifying a specific note, something he has observed in both Chinese and Western styles of music, he said.

Yo-Yo Ma has been an inspiration to him, he said.

"Sometimes I play with Yo-Yo and I look at him and think, ‘He's a rock star'," he said. "It's really opened my mind and I am truly grateful to him for being so lovely, and for creating this stage for us."

The ensemble meets for workshops lasting from 14 to 20 days each year, he said. They also meet for several days of rehearsal before going on international tours.

"They are like my family," he said. "Sometimes I've wanted to quit, but the reason I'm still here is because I just really want to learn from other musicians, other music and cultures. The people are really lovely. One of the other members said to me recently, ‘You have Indian blood in your Chinese body.' I feel close to all of them."

Wu's openness extends to other areas of his life. In 2008, he performed in the opera The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Stewart Wallace and Amy Tan, in San Francisco, and also composed the film score to Wong Kar Wai's Ashes of Time Redux that year. A sheng looping device he created was recently patented in China, and he is currently working on the score for a short film created by Clifford Rose.

"I want to try all kinds of new things," he said. "I think many

Chinese can fall into the position of only seeing the world from their own perspective, from the premise of their own culture. It's not that China is more or less curious about the US than the US is about China, it's because the mode of living and style of American living has allowed for people to be exposed to different cultures for a longer time. Now that there's a certain standard of living in China, I expect that in the upcoming decades Chinese culture will be even more open."

Although he describes his curiosity about new things as "fearless", he admits that when Wong Kar Wai asked him to work on his @ lm, he was so nervous his hair turned white. "But I really enjoyed working with him, because I think we have similar working styles. Wong Kar Wai and Yo-Yo Ma, they just want to do the very best. It's very inspiring."

He also paints. "But very badly," he said with a laugh. And as a practicing Buddhist, he makes it a priority to meditate, he said.

"As always, I try to keep a balance between quiet and noisy in my life."

kdawson@chinadailyusa.com