Red Sun Descending (zhongruan 中阮)

While on tour as guitarist with the Sound of Dragon Ensemble in September 2019, I was introduced to Eight Tones Music School in Singapore, and director Daryl Keuk, who was commissioning beautiful musical instruments. I bought a zhongruan that was affordable, yet modelled on a much higher-quality sounding instrument owned by Singapore musician Derrick Waikit Wong, whose playing, along with that of Taiwanese ruan player and composer 潘宜彤 (Dabby Pan) of the "3 People Music" ensemble, inspired this composition. The recording you hear in the examples is performed by Dabby Pan.