REVIEW

"Phoenix was also a showpiece for the sheng, a centuries-old Chinese mouth organ that looks like a vertical bundle of bamboo and sounds like a cross between a harmonica and a bagpipe, only not nearly as loud. It is a measure of the composer’s technical ability that the big orchestra seldom overpowers the sheng, played with rock-star physical energy by Wu Wei. The Chinese-born artist has made a name for himself improvising with jazz artists, and an extensive cadenza near the end of the piece gave him plenty of leeway to use all the aspects of the instrument – polyphonic, even contrapuntal, and masterfully paced.” 

—Harvey Steiman, Seen and Heard International

"Throughout the score, Fang slathers on orchestral colors in bold, dynamic strokes. The sheng, whose sound is reedy but not especially muscular, doesn’t always find its way to the fore amid the onslaught, but when it does — as in an unaccompanied solo cadenza near the end, which Wu executed with fiendish virtuosity — the effect is splendid... Song of the Flaming Phoenix in all its splashy splendor, landed like a brilliant, extravagantly inventive bombshell. ” 

—Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle

"Fang conceived “Song of the Flaming Phoenix” as a vast landscape of diverse sonorities, where gradual transition takes precedence over segmentation. Thus, over the course of its 25 minutes of performance, the music guides the listener across that landscape, allowing every individual feature to register with the perceptive listener without ever imposing explicit boundaries of segmentation.” 

—Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

"Since meeting him, Chinese-American composer Fang Man had wanted to write a concerto for Wu Wei, a specialist of the sheng, an ancient Chinese instrument that enjoys the distinction of being the oldest woodwind free-reed instrument in the world. Over three millennia old, the instrument was brought to Saint Petersburg in the late 18th century, where it inspired the creation of European free reed instruments like the accordion and harmonica. “The sheng has a very rich overtone,” Wu Wei says. “It’s soft, like human singing. But it can be very powerful.” He adds that although the quality of the sound is abstract, it is also elegant. ” 

—Jasmine Liu, Classical Voice

"The world premiere of Chinese-born American composer Fang Man’s yet untitled composition blending Chinese and Greek mythology is on a program from March 11–13, 2021 with the rarely-performed Scriabin’s “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire” and Beethoven’s “Creatures of Prometheus.” 

—Janos Gereben, S.F. Examiner​