Symphony of the Hawai‘i Forests: Reflections on Ka Wai Ke Kumu Ola (2023) Full orchestraCity of Imagination (2015)
for erhu, dizi, yangqin, sheng, pipa, guzheng
duration: 8 minutes
Listen:
Performers: Lo Sze-wang, Wong Chi-chung, Pan Ya-sze, Yu Wing-ka, Frederick Lau, Yi-Chieh Lai
Program Notes
One of the enjoyable aspects of being a composer is having opportunities to write music for musicians from faraway places whom I have never met before. I often try to envision the musicians playing my work as I write my composition, so by the time I am finished with the piece, it almost feels like I know them intimately. This divide between reality and imagination is one that composers have to navigate with every piece, but with City of Imagination, this issue became more pertinent than usual because not only was I writing for musicians that I had not worked with before, I was also writing for six Chinese instruments, five of which I had never written for before. This seemed like a daunting task at first (How is this passage going to sound? Is this even passage playable?), but as the piece progressed, my imagination conflated with reality to create a musical world (or a "city") that made me feel like I had been writing for these instruments for a long time. Am I slightly delusional? Quite possibly, but where would the fun be without a little of that?
This piece was written for the Chinese Music Virtuosi.