The hammered dulcimer is closely related to the Persian santur, which dates back to ancient Babylonia. A versatile percussion instrument, it first appeared in China during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
I was almost going to quit music … It was a huge turning point for me.
It gained popularity in southern Guangdong province initially before its use spread to the rest of the country.
The standard version has 144 steel strings, which the player strikes with a pair of small bamboo hammers, and it is a staple of the modern Chinese orchestra and frequently accompanies Chinese operas.
Praised by celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma as “courageous, passionate, truth-seeking”, Mantawoman was born Reylon Yount in San Francisco to a Chinese mother born in Beijing and an American father from Pennsylvania.
They grew up in San Francisco but had plenty of exposure to Chinese culture. They learned Chinese, trained in wushu, went on frequent family trips to Beijing and from the age of seven, played the dulcimer.
The “iridescence and magic” of the instrument was instantly addictive, Mantawoman says.
I grew my hair out because of the pandemic, and people started calling me ‘she’. I thought – how funny, how strange, how flimsy must gender be
They went on to take private lessons with sisters Zhao Gangqin and Zhao Yangqin of the Melody of China, a Chinese chamber ensemble based in San Francisco. The latter recommended Yount to Huang He, a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
From 2011 to 2013, the teenaged Yount attended private summer classes with Huang in Beijing. In 2014, they competed in the Baotou International Yangqin Arts Festival and won the silver medal.
“I learned so much and got to meet players who were at the top of their game, which really helped me up my game,” Mantawoman says. “That was a very formative experience.”
However, they did not always consider Chinese music a legitimate career path. “A lot of people in San Francisco and the US studied Chinese instruments as kids, but they give it up at a certain point because there’s no path for them to develop,” Mantawoman says.
And so, when the time came for tertiary education, Yount opted for the safer, traditional academic route, studying environmental science and public policy at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But fate works in mysterious ways. In their second year at Harvard, Yount had the chance to perform in a concert with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble alongside pipa (Chinese lute) player Wu Man.
“I was almost going to quit music. But in rehearsal, I was asked how important music was in my life. I said, ‘It changes, but today, it means everything’. It was a huge turning point for me.”
Yount subsequently toured with the Silkroad Ensemble as a guest performer and performed on its Grammy-winning album Sing Me Home. When they graduated from Harvard, they won a scholarship to study for a master’s degree in music at the SOAS University of London.
In 2019, while studying for a second master’s degree in music and sonic arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, they co-founded Tangram, a transnational Chinese music collective working in the contemporary classical space which is still active today.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened. Like many others in times of social isolation, Yount looked inward.
“I came out as queer when I was 17, but I still identified as a boy. In 2020, I began paying more attention to my gender. I had a convergence of different experiences: one was watching RuPaul’s Drag Race for the first time and witnessing the freedom, creativity and authentic self-expression of these incredible artists and being very inspired by that. It opened my mind to different possibilities.
“And this very particular experience happened in 2021: I grew my hair out because of the pandemic, and people started calling me ‘she’. I thought – how funny, how strange, how flimsy must gender be, that a delayed hair appointment was all it took for people to start perceiving me the other way.
I think Yo-Yo [Ma] is interested in connection and what’s underneath the music. He can see how much I care about connecting authentically with people through my music.
“That’s when I began to tune in, as I liked the feeling when people called me ‘she’.
“Instead of shying away from that or trying to stick to a rigid identity as a man, I decided to explore, play with and lean into that. As I did, the music I made became more heartfelt.
“I started listening to parts of myself that I had silenced, parts that were very melancholic and, in a way, lost … but also, in a way, free. It’s been an amazing journey since and it’s still unfolding.”
In 2020, they released their first song, “Strange”, with the dulcimer playing in the background, of course. That laid the groundwork for Yount’s alter ego Mantawoman to develop a more intuitive approach to the instrument and use it to reflect their fluid identity.
“I had forgotten to bring my mallets to the studio, so I improvised by plucking – not an unheard of technique, but very rare in the yangqin repertoire. I just let the shape of the instrument guide me,” they say.
Also in 2020, they published a series of music videos and audiovisual performances, which received positive comments from Ma, who they consider a mentor.
“I think Yo-Yo is interested in connection and what’s underneath the music. He can see how much I care about connecting authentically with people through my music. I take a lot of inspiration too from how he connects people. It’s something I aspire to do in my career, as well.”
Now there is a solo “psychedelic musical extravaganza” called Yang Queen about their journey with the dulcimer, which was developed in collaboration with other artists during a residency at London’s Southbank Centre in 2023. The next performance is scheduled for October 2 at The Divine in northeast London.
Prior to [moving to Margate], I’d always been a shape-shifter, adapting to other people’s music and sounds – I loved it, but I was never able to show up fully
Since the autumn of 2022, Mantawoman has lived in the seaside town of Margate in southeast England. “Margate is magical, it has the most beautiful sunsets and the most beautiful people. The queer community and artistic, musical scene here are amazing.”
Since 2023, they have been posting more videos of themself appearing in an increasingly non-binary fashion, playing dulcimer adaptations of pop music and accumulating tens of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram.
That year, they released their debut EP, titled The Way She Makes Us Waves, which they launched by performing at a theatre in Margate where they felt they “[embodied] my true self for the first time”.
“Prior to [moving to Margate], I’d always been a shape-shifter, adapting to other people’s music and sounds – I loved it, but I was never able to show up fully,” they say. “I was always the American playing Chinese music or the yangqin player playing classical music, which [was] amazing education; but this is me giving you everything. Margate is where I had the space to become Mantawoman in real life.”
At the moment, Mantawoman is working on their next record, Avatar, focusing on “detachment and ascension with some flirtation thrown in”.
“My music is very much concerned with the truth, and hopefully it’s becoming more truthful,” they say.
