SPAA Professor Helps RU-N Celebrate Chinese Musical Traditions Through Cultural Programming Grant

BY SPAA STAFF

On April 23, 2025, SPAA Assistant Teaching Professor Weiwei Lin helped with the successful presentation of a concert, "Silk and Strings: A Musical Journey through China's History," to celebrate Chinese musical traditions in the Paul Robeson Campus Center (PRCC). Supported by a grant from Rutgers University’s Cultural Programming Committee, the concert featured acclaimed performers including pipa soloist Yang Jin and the Flying Strings Youth Ensemble. The event drew an engaged audience of approximately 100 attendees from across the Rutgers-Newark community and beyond, fulfilling its dual objectives of cultural showcase and community engagement.

The program's impact was reflected in overwhelmingly positive feedback, with 96% of survey respondents rating the musical performances as excellent and 90% expressing strong likelihood to recommend future events. Audience members particularly praised the program's diversity, which spanned from regional folk melodies to contemporary compositions, performed on traditional instruments like the pipa, erhu, and guzheng. The inclusion of young performers from the Flying Strings Youth Ensemble added an inspiring educational dimension, highlighted by the participation of Chelsea Meng, a 4th grader from Livingston, New Jersey. Chelsea's mother, Fang Gong, a Rutgers alumna and a current Board of Education member in Livingston, graduated from SPAA's MPA program in 2007.

Fang Gong (MPA'07), on left, and her daughter Chelsea Meng, in front, a 4th grader from Livingston, New Jersey with Rutgers SPAA Dean Kaifeng Yang, middle, and SPAA Assistant Teaching Professor Weiwei Lin, on right.