I am very impressed and you and your Chinese instrumentalists are enriching Canadian culture greatly as well as honouring with your music your own home country.  And if I am not being too "forward" myself, you are all wonderful Canadians.  We say music from China, from Thailand, from Turkey, from Africa, from Indonesia, et cetera, but I feel that all this music culturally belongs to the entire world - it is all part of our own true humanity, for we are all one people and one family

Having said that, I have heard Autumn Cloud through and it is wonderful - everything I expected.  The musicianship is superb, some of the compositions daring as well as exciting and all interesting, with some adaptation of Celtic and Latin American rhythms as well as a section or movement from Rodrigo's Concierto des Aranjuez (sp?).  I like the combination of Chinese and Indian and Western instruments all of which blend well.  The album is also tasteful.  What you do with the pipa in a modern sense shows how versatile this intrument really is.  My only reservation is with the 12th track " . . . of wind and water" for pipa and orchestra which was recorded in Europe in 1997.  I feel that the pipa here is too forward, too pronounced, and the orchestra (which I think is meant to play lighter and perhaps gently) not present enough.  I suppose it is a matter of balance.  But it is a virtuoso performance and the conductor and orchestra are sensitive and sympathetic.
 
The booklet is excellent in both design, information on the instruments as well as pictures of them and of all of you that currently make up Silk Road Music.  I like very much the English and the Chinese languages beside each other.  
 
This CD will give me many hours of pleasure.  I am always struck by the immediacy of music and much of all the arts throughout the world because they, and particularly music, inherently implie unity in diversity, harmony, peace, stillness, and is very close to the spirit of the Ti Chi and the Tao.
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I happened upon your CD while searching for chinese music for pipa, guzheng and erhu. The combination of pipa with latin music got me interested.
I enjoy your music very much, tracks 3 6 8 10 and 12 are my favorites. The sound of your pipa is adding a new dimension to the different music stiles." Canarios" for instance sounds as if it should  have been written for this exact combination of instruments.
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While cross-cultural fusion is currently trendy, poor musicianship is often its sloppy hallmark. That is not the case here. Qui Xia's own rigorous training results here in flawless execution, and she's got some great musicians backing her, including Celso Machado and Andre Thibault. They skip along musical styles, from Flamenco, to Indian, Western classical and Celtic reels.

Spare and restrained framework keep it from sounding chaotic, however. The result is lovely, a must for Chinese-music fans.

By Shawna Biamonte
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I  will definitely be playing it on the radio.  The show featurers independent women's music of all genres, and I like to throw in a bit of world music from different cultures.  You play beautifully.
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