If you measure the heat of a band by the freshness of its sound, then the Huayin Shadow Puppet Band is hotter than the latest indie-rock sensation, even though its music is centuries old. From the ...

When Wu Man, the great virtuoso of the four-stringed pipa (a k a Chinese lute), went to China in 2007, she was on a mission. In preparation for programming a festival of traditional Chinese music at ...

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Huayin, a scenic village in Northern China on a tributary of the Yellow River at the foot of Hua Mountain. OK, it was a Thursday. And it was Santa Barbara. But the Huayin ...