20/03/26 - CARPE/FUAIM Screening: Playing the Flute in Shanghai: The Musical Life of Dai Shuhong

Happening On 20/03/2026

This biographical documentary film is the result of a collaboration among its eighty-year-old subject, Dai Shuhong, an eminent Shanghai-based performer of Chinese bamboo flutes and qin zither; his students, friends, and family; and two UCLA-based filmmakers, one of whom was his longtime student. Filmed over 2016–2017, it incorporates interviews, performances, lessons, historical photographs, archival video footage, and scenes of daily life.

Dai, a born raconteur, tells his own life story, highlighting his longstanding relationship with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and his musical partnerships with the renowned Tibetan singer Tseten Dolma (b. 1937) and legendary qin master Zhang Ziqian (1899–1991).

Credits

Co-directors: Helen Rees and Aparna Sharma

Producer: Helen Rees

Historical footage: Rulan Chao Pian

Biography

Helen Rees is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She studied Chinese bamboo flutes with Dai Shuhong and qin zither with Lin Youren at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music between 1987 and 1989. Her research focuses on the traditional musics of southwest China and Shanghai, evolving concepts of intellectual property and intangible cultural heritage, and organology. Her most recent book is the edited volume Instrumental Lives: Musical Instruments, Material Culture, and Social Networks in East and Southeast Asia (University of Illinois Press, 2024). She has also collaborated on thirteen ethnographic CDs of music from southwest China and has frequently interpreted and presented for Chinese musicians touring abroad, including at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Amsterdam China Festival, and England’s Asian Music Circuit.

CARPE / FUAIM

Department of Music, University College Cork

Lecture Series Presents

Prof. Helen Rees

University of California, Los Angeles

20 March 2026

2-4pm

Kane Screening Room, B.10B