Cai Yan: Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute

Here is Cai Yan’s entry on Wikipedia.  She appears as number 3 on Wikipedia’s list of female composers.  Cai Yan was born around 170 AD in China.  The daughter of a famous scholar, Cai Yang, she also studied calligraphy, poetry, and music, and was married off at the age of 15. Her first husband died, she returned home, and was subsequently captured by nomads during civil wars.  Cai Yan lived among them for twelve years and had two sons.  It seems there are three poems that she wrote detailing the sorrows of living among barbarians.  Eventually, she was ransomed by a chancellor in the name of her father.  He wanted her back because she was the last surviving member of her clan and he needed to appease the spirits.  I managed to track down three of her poems that were translated and published in 1983.  (Cai Yan and the Poems Attributed to Her, Hans H. Frankel Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Jul., 1983), pp. 133-156)).  A search on youtube for her works yielded two versions of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, which is today’s piece. If you scroll down below it you’ll find a translation of the “Eighteen Songs.” The article said the text was in Creative Commons. Here is the Youtube performance of “Eighteen Songs….”