do you know tina guo?
As you may already know, I am a big fan of the TV show Game of Thrones. One of the things I like most about the show is the magnificent score by Ramin Djawadi. One day on YouTube I saw a video of a cover of the GoT main theme, and it immediately caught my attention. Take two minutes and you’ll see why. Don’t miss the last 40 seconds or so.
You can understand why this video grabbed my attention. Not only can this woman play the cello with virtuosity, but she is beautiful and sexy and goes all Jimi Hendrix with an electric cello at the end. As often occurs, I clicked through to watch another video and then another and another. Who is this Tina Guo, I asked?
A quick read of her Wiki page told me she is a 31-year old Chinese-American cellist and erhuist with a long list of impressive accomplishments. She is classically trained, but you can tell from the video you just watched that she is so much more than just a classical musician, although her Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 is a thing of beauty. How many people have performed with both the Foo Fighters and symphony orchestras from the U.S, Mexico, Brazil, Greece, and Canada?
I had to look up the erhu. It is a traditional Chinese instrument that looks like a sort of two-stringed cello, and it produces an eerie, almost extraterrestrial, sound. Here’s an example:
One of the things I enjoy about the videos in addition to the music is Ms. Guo’s elaborate body art, costuming, and set design. I also appreciate the professional cinematography and sound in the videos. She does a lot of videos of movie and game scores, but you can also watch her in live performances, playing classical selections, giving instruction, and performing her own compositions.
Since I love movie scores, I’ll leave you with one last video, the main theme from The Last of the Mohicans, and ask Do you know Tina Guo?
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY