9-15-2026 4:53am

The Banjo Went to China and Came Back With a Friend: Washburn and Wu Fei at Strathmore

Eme Awa Editor

Photo: Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei. Courtesy of Strathmore.

Some pairings make sense on paper. Bass and drums, for example. Others make sense nowhere on paper and work anyway. Enter a clawhammer banjo from Appalachia and a 21-string guzheng from Beijing.

On October 18, Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei bring that improbable conversation to the stage — and you should be in the room for it.

The Players

Abigail Washburn is a Grammy-winning banjo player and vocalist whose clawhammer style has landed in some genuinely unexpected places — and who also speaks Mandarin. Fluently. She has spent years living in and touring through China.

Wu Fei is a Beijing-born virtuoso of the guzheng, classically trained, compositionally restless. She improvises. She composes. She moves between traditional Chinese repertoire and contemporary work without asking permission from either camp.

Put them together and you get something that should not work.

It Works

Here is the thing about the banjo: it is percussive. It drives. It pokes. The guzheng, by contrast, cascades — a 21-string waterfall with a two-thousand-year memory. One instrument taps you on the shoulder. The other pulls you downstream. Together they argue, agree, interrupt, and eventually finish each other's sentences.

Underneath it, both traditions work the same material: land, weather, family, labor, leaving home, coming back. Appalachian old-time and traditional Chinese folk. Different mountains. Same ache.

Washburn and Wu do not smooth over their differences into some beige "world music" paste. They keep the accents. They let the banjo be American and the guzheng be Chinese and let the conversation be the point.

How This Happened

They met, found each other irresistible, and started playing. Their self-titled album arrived in 2020 via Smithsonian Folkways. It drew critical acclaim and, more usefully, brought in audiences who had never considered these two instruments roommates.

They have also become quiet diplomats. Two women, two traditions, one stage, performing together through a period when the two countries they represent were not exactly exchanging holiday cards. That is not a small thing. It is not a political statement either. It is just two musicians refusing to let geography have the final word.

What You Will Hear

The repertoire pulls from three wells: traditional Chinese tunes, Appalachian standards, and original arrangements built specifically for this duo. Expect improvisation — their live shows are conversational rather than scripted, which means the set list is a suggestion and the chemistry is the actual performance.

Expect vocals in both English and Mandarin. Expect the guzheng to do something you did not know a zither could do. Expect the banjo to sound, at moments, almost plucked from another century entirely.

Why Go

This duo is proof that cultural traditions don't shatter when something new touches them. They're living things — they get stronger when they agree, argue, and borrow from each other. Washburn and Wu prove it every time they play together. And they prove it without lecturing you about it.

Come for the curiosity. Stay because it is genuinely beautiful.

October 18 | The Mansion at Strathmore | Buy Tickets.

Two traditions. Two instruments. One very good argument. See you there.

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