Concert | Long Night of Chinese Music
The concert by the Taiwanese ensemble China Found Music Workshop Taipei will present exciting and innovative results of compositional explorations with traditional Chinese instruments. In addition to two traditional pieces of ‘silk and bamboo music’ (sizhuyue) from southern China, the programme includes works by Taiwanese and European composers, including three world premieres.
The thematic focuses are as diverse as the biographical traces of the composers: Cologne-based Tung Chao-Ming (born 1969) deals with Buddhist iconography and an ancient melody from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in Die Gesichter des Buddha (The Faces of Buddha); leading Taiwanese composer Pan Hwang-Long (born 1945) centres his composition around the Buddhist idea of ‘content’ (yijing); Composer Shih Pei-Yu (born 1973), who is currently studying in Karlsruhe, superimposes insistent rhythmic ostinati and the noisy qualities of the instruments in Tsao – Chieh I. Vienna-based sound artist Bernhard Gál (born 1971) creates a sequence of invented soundscapes in which ‘noise’ from the audience is deliberately integrated; Christian Utz (born 1969), who also conducts the ensemble, seeks in Interference a ‘contradictory self-identity’ between Webern's piano variations, the silk and bamboo piece Xingjie (Street Scene) and elements of Japanese gagaku and Korean p'ansori. Finally, a special attraction is the composition *** by Sandeep Bhagwati (*1963) for a mixed Western-Chinese ensemble, which will be premiered together with the Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam at the end of the concert. Based on the essay ‘Dictionary of Winds’ by Ivetta Gerasimchuk and the translation of wind names, Bhagwati has designed a multi-layered structure in which European and Chinese instruments, texts, singing styles, languages and cultural idioms combine to form a dense and dazzling conglomerate.
Traditional work: Da ba ban – The Big Eight Strokes
from: Shang si tao – Beiguan sizhuyuequ
(The upper four movements – Beiguan silk and bamboo music)
Pan Hwang-Long
Wujing, qingjing, yijing – Matter, Expression, Content (1996)
Bernhard Gál
Of Sound and Time (1999/2000)
Tung Chao-Ming
Die Gesichter des Buddhas (2001)
WP / commissioned by MaerzMusik
Christian Utz
Interference
for piano and 8 Chinese Instruments (2001)
Shih Pei-yu
Tsao · Chieh I (2001)
WP / commissioned by MaerzMusik
Traditional work: Xingjie – Jiangnan-sizhuye
(Street train – silk and bamboo music from the region south of the Yangzi River)
Sandeep Bhagwati
* * *
for western and Chinese ensemble
WP / commissioned by MaerzMusik for China Found Music Workshop and Nieuw Ensemble
China Found Music Workshop Taipei
Christian Utz – conductor
In Zusammenarbeit mit AsianCultureLink Wien mit Unterstützung von National Culture ans Arts Foundation Taipei