Teach with My Music with Rhiannon Giddens with Wu Man to introduce students to Chinese musician Wu Man, her instrument the pipa, Chinese music, American Transcontinental Railroad History and the experience of Chinese Immigrants.
In My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season Two Episode One, host Rhiannon Giddens performs and talks with pipa master Wu Man, a 2023 NEA National Heritage Fellow who has been part of Silkroad Ensemble since its founding in 2000 by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Wu Man is a Grammy award-winning pipa virtuoso and ambassador of Chinese music. Her work strives to preserve and innovate pipa music through performance, education, and collaboration. Rhiannon Giddens and Wu Man talk about the origins of the pipa and discuss Silkroad’s multi-year “American Railroad” project.
Why Teach with My Music with Rhiannon Giddens
My Music with Rhiannon Giddens brings US history alive to explore the development of the Transcontinental Railroad during western expansion in the United States. The series also deepens understanding and connection and can build community around the cultures that were first connected by the building of America’s Transcontinental Railroad.
Why Teach with The Episode One Learning Guide with Wu Man
The Episode One Learning Guide for My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season Two Episode One with Wu Man can help you teach about about:
- Chinese music and the pipa (Chinese string instrument)
- History of the American Transcontinental Railroad and Chinese Immigrants
- History through Music
- Music Lessons
This learning guide contains background context about the Transcontinental Railroad, a Pre-viewing Activity, and Active Viewing Recommendations.
It also includes glossaries / lists of useful terms, discussion questions, related resources, and extended learning activates. The extended learning activities can include our supplementary Music Listening Handout and Song Analysis Handout.
Episode running time: 25 minutes
Subjects: History, Music, Music History, Social Studies, U.S. History
Lesson Grades: 6,7,8
Where Can I Get This Learning Guide
Get your free copy of these teaching resources from the My Music with Rhiannon Giddens / Teaching the American Railroad page in the Journeys in Film Resource Library and learn more about teaching with this powerful and inspiring series.
Where Can I Watch This Episode
Get the latest information on where to watch from the My Music with Rhiannon Giddens listing in the Journeys in Film Resource Library.
Where Can I Get More Related Resources
Combine My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season 2, Episode 1 about Chinese Pipa Master Wu Man with Please Vote for Me and The Music of Strangers for teaching about about China and Chinese culture.
If you’re teaching Middle School Geography, History and Social Studies, we also recommend: Children of Heaven (Iran), Like Stars on Earth (India), Please Vote for Me (China), The Cup (Tibet), The Way Home (South Korea), Wadjda (Saudi Arabia), and Whale Rider (Aotearoa / New Zealand).
Our Windows and Mirrors Media Literacy Activity gives students a way to consider if the perspectives of underrepresented and marginalized people are included in their media diets.
You can also check out our related resource collections for teaching with film about Music and Women’s History.
How Can I Learn More about Teaching with this Series
Learn more about teaching with our full collection of Learning Guides and teaching resources for this series in our My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Teaching Resources FAQ.
How Can I Do Professional Development Related to this Series
Silkroad Ensemble members will be participating in our free professional development webinar Teaching with Primary Sources: Cultural Products as Historical Narrative on January 27, 2026. Learn more and register for the series: Stories That Connect: Using Film and Primary Sources to Build Belonging
What if I’m New to Teaching With Film
Check out our Teacher Toolbox to make teaching with film fun, easy and effective.
About Wu Man
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument—which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists. She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, and is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared on nearly 50 recordings, including numerous Grammy Award-winning and -nominated albums. This season she premieres a new pipa concerto by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, titled “Ears of the Book” with The Knights at Carnegie Hall and with the Detroit Symphony.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa. At age 13, she was recognized as a child prodigy and a national role model for young pipa players. In 2023, Wu man was honored with both a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States’ most prestigious honors in folk and traditional art; and with the Asia Society’s Asia Arts Game Changers Award. Wu Man is Musical America’s 2013 “Instrumentalist of the Year,” marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument. She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi’an Conservatories. In 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.
About My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season 2
Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner Rhiannon Giddens hosts a half-hour series of musical performance and conversation with multicultural musicians in the Silkroad Ensemble’s American Railroad project. The outstanding guest artists of the series are innovative and accomplished musicians and storytellers who have forged unconventional paths to find their voices.
About the American Railroad Project
Originally conceived by Silkroad’s Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens, the American Railroad project sheds light on the profound yet often-overlooked contributions of Indigenous and African Americans, as well as Chinese, Irish, Japanese, and other immigrant communities, to the construction of the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad and connecting railways across North America.
Just as the ancient Silk Road facilitated cultural exchange between Asia and Europe, the railroad transformed the American landscape—both uniting and dividing the people whose lives it touched. While these laborers played a fundamental role in one of the 19th century’s most significant technological and economic achievements, their stories have too often been erased from history. At the same time, the railways had a devastating impact on Indigenous communities, displacing people from their ancestral lands.
About the Silkroad Ensemble
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together. Seeking to understand this dynamic, he recognized the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration – for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a new artistic idiom: a musical language founded in difference, a metaphor for the benefits of a more connected world.
Journeys in Film is pleased to offer educational resources for two Silkroad Projects: My Music with Rhiannon Giddens Season Two / American Railroad and The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble for grades 6-12.
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My Music with Rhiannon Giddens / Teaching the American Railroad
