Unity Secondary School Anthem 2006
Composed, Arranged & MIDI programmed by Kelly Tang

Lyrics:
"We be-long to U-ni-ty
U-ni-ted we will stand
Lo-yal as we can be
to our Na-tion, our fa-mi-ly, to U-ni-ty!

It is we who climb the moun-tains
It is we who reach the peak
As ma-jes-tic as an ea-gle
We will soar to vic-to-ry.

With the strength to be strong
the wis-dom to be wise,
the vi-sion we dream of
we will a-chieve it all.

We be-long to U-ni-ty
U-ni-ted we will be
Lo-yal as we can be
To our Na-tion, our fa-mi-ly, to U-ni-ty!
To our Na-tion, our fa-mi-ly, to U-ni-ty!"

Unity Secondary School Anthem 2006

三轮车 Trishaw

Text by Hermann Hesse

Recorded by the Eastman Chorale on 16 April, 2014, in the Ray Wright Room of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York.

Conductor: Mark Helms


Im Nebel

Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Einsam ist jeder Busch und Stein,
Kein Baum sieht den andern,
Jeder ist allein.

Voll von Freunden war mir die Welt
Als noch mein Leben licht war;
Nun, da der Nebel fällt,
Ist keiner mehr sichtbar.

Wahrlich, keiner ist weise,
Der nicht das Dunkel kennt,
Das unentrinnbar und leise
Von allen ihn trennt.

Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Leben ist Einsamsein.
Kein Mensch kennt den andern,
Jeder ist allein.


In the Mists

Wondrous to wander through mists!
Parted are bush and stone,
None to the other exists:
Each stands alone.

Many my friends came calling
then, when I lived in the light;
Now that the fogs are falling,
None is in sight.

Truly, only the sages
Fathom the darkness to fall,
Which, as silent as cages,
Separates all.

Strange to walk in the mists!
Life has to solitude grown.
None for the other exists:
Each is alone.

(translated by Walter A. Aue)

Im Nebel

Pater Noster - Alejandro D. Consolacion II

Project Pickup Programme Notes

Text
F: It’s cold out there…
A: But darling, it’s warmer in here because of you!
*gets slapped in the face*

A: NNNNnnnneeeeeeext!!

A: My dear, life without you is like a broken pencil…
F: Why?
A: Because life without you is… pointless…
F: Great… wonderful…

F: I thought I saw you on Spotify, you were listed as the "hottest single". 
A: Oh my G(hey) (Oh I’m Gay)

A: Hey, do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I walk by again (when we first met… oh)!

F: Hey are you a practice room, because I want you and hope you’re not taken.

F: Are you that note I messed up at the concert, coz I can’t stop thinking about you.
A: Awww that’s so sweet.

F: I’m going to have to give you a ticket.
A: What do you mean? But what for?
F: For being too cute! Give me your number!!

Speakeasy Tutti:  Hallelujah x 3…HALLELUUUUUJAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Notes
This work is inspired by my visit to a hidden (-behind-a-bookshelf) speakeasy bar in Urbana-Champaign during winter, as well as my favourite artist Salvador Dali and his surrealistic paintings. I wanted to create a dreamy, surrealistic soundscape that was pseudo-programmatic, employs and deconstructs spoken text, but is also humorous and approachable for the layman.  Like the overwhelmingly loud and noisy bar I visited, it was hard and required sustained concentration to have a proper conversation in such settings and very often, only fragments of conversations can be heard and sometimes, what is heard is jumbled or distorted in various ways. I decided to create an entire work based on pick up lines that I may or may not have deployed across over the years. In true surrealistic fashion, spoken phrases get spun off, slaps become EDM beats, and synthesisers become transformed into the voice of singers in harmony. Being married to a feminist and having been nurtured by iron ladies in my musical upbringing, decided it was also fun to do a role reversal in this pick up scenario.

Various techniques were used to modify text and voices. Audio files were mapped into MIDI and tweaked to increase/decrease pitch and/or speed. In some cases, it was to create a feeling of slow motion after being slapped. Use of “Spectral Blurring” ala Michael Norris was applied on “Are you a practice room (…)” in traditional Madrigalian fashion to “paint the text” and create the illusion that the speaker was teleported into a small practice cubicle. A slow gradual reveal of “I thought I saw you on Spotify, you were listed as the 'hottest single’” and the “OMG(hey)” was achieved by strategic splicing(s)/crossfades and plugins to create intentional hilarious (mis)understandings of what is being said. Stereo-panning was used to create a sense of movement and space. A quasi-stretto and increasing intensity of pickup lines. High frequency sounds were used to recreate the tinnitus one can get after being in a loud bar for too long!! Please listen to the music till the very end. Thank you!

Albert TAY
5 April 2025, 2318hrs
Chambana, Illinois, USA.

Project Pickup.wav

Having a go improvising "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" to test out my new keyboard, Arturia Keylab 88. =)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Illinois Modern Ensemble, Stephen Taylor, conductor.  8 February 2017.
Sonic Illinois Festival, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Cold Horizon, for chamber orchestra, grew out of a piece for vibraphone and piano entitled Cold, which I wrote in Paris in January 2001.  The basic musical ideas and icy, shimmering instrumental colors of Cold have been stretched out into a supple, continuously flowing, and dramatic form, and colored as if seen at twilight under a fading and distant light.  

In a sense, Cold Horizon explores resonance as a model or metaphor for developing musical gestures and forms.  Often resonance is used to create a sense of perspective, reminding us that music takes place not only in time but also in space. Musical lines that are slightly out of alignment shadow each other as they seem to echo in a reverberant space.  Similarly, rhythmic processes and subtle changes of orchestration create the illusion of musical gestures that approach or recede.  The opening of the piece, a quasi-Doppler effect, is one example.  Another typical idea is the filtering of complex harmonies into simple intervals, floating points of stability that form a thread of consonance woven across the span of the piece.  The use of quarter tones blurs the line between harmony and instrumental timbres to create a sense of depth and shadow against the well-tempered, “normal” pitches.

Cold Horizon has passed through a series of incarnations, beginning with an initial sketch premiered in 2002 by the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon-Provence under Sylvio Gualda at the Centre Acanthes contemporary music festival in France.  The complete piece was premiered in 2003 by the University of California, Berkeley Symphony conducted by David Milnes, followed by a revised and expanded version performed by the Minnesota Orchestra at their Composer Institute in 2006 with David Alan Miller.  I revised the piece one last time in early 2017 for this performance, making some minor adjustments to its pacing, clarifying the orchestration and several harmonic details, and pruning back some pretentious complexity in the notation.

Cold Horizon (2017 Version)

Qualia [tape]

This was a song I wrote for UFM100.3 radio station, in celebration for Chinese New Year in 2015. I wrote the melody and did the music arrangement, whereas the radio DJs wrote the lyrics and sung in the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46jFgatMTk8

三轮车 Trishaw

Albert Tay

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