EALC's Judith Zeitlin Collaborates in the Creation of "Ghost Village" with Composer and Alum Yao Chen

CEAS faculty member Judith Zeitlin (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago) is in collaboration with composer Yao Chen (University of Chicago, PhD '12) in the creation of Ghost Village, an opera based on a ghost tale by the Chinese writer Pu Songling (1640-1715).  Supporting initiatives that relate to the Ming Dynasty, the Geiss-Hsu Foundation is sponsoring a performance and recording of a short excerpt from the opera in Shenzhen, China in February 2024.  Featured in a special issue on the Creative Turn in Arts Scholarship, Zeitlin and Chen talk more about this initiative including the development of writing a libretto for an opera, re-discovering the sound of the Ming pipa, and the creative process behind the music.

To read the full interview, click here.