Some years after a brief stint learning guzheng in college, George found his way to Tranquil Resonance on the recommendation of his former teacher. Yet in a twist of fate (or perhaps it was due to the dozen or more guqins hanging on the walls) George decided to switch instruments and begin learning the guqin. So began his twenty-fifth birthday.
Or perhaps he switched to the guqin because he and David began to talk philosophy, and George saw in David the kind of conversation partner he had been looking for over the past decade since he'd gotten his first copy of the Dao De Jing and read it repeatedly in an attempt to find a way into its strange language, or since he'd taken up practicing tai chi and playing go in college, smitten with the aesthetics of things with an ancient lineage, which one practices not to achieve but solely to experience and learn from the process -- something he also found in learning the guqin at Tranquil Resonance.
Since then he has incidentally achieved things with the instrument, placing first in Stanford's International Music Competition (guqin category) as well as traveling through Vietnam and China while sharing the art, meeting other players, and performing. At times impish and nonchalant, he tossed his trophy aside after the competition (though David kindly saved it for posterity).
George now lives in San Diego where he teaches the guqin amid other scholarly pursuits such as writing and craft bookbinding, both of which he also shares via workshops and teaching. He is proud to share the traditions of the Guangling Guqin School in southern California while he continues his lifelong study of the instrument one note at a time.