常記溪亭日暮，沉醉不知歸路。
興盡晚回舟，誤入藕花深處。
爭渡，爭渡，驚起一灘鷗鷺。

It was a day at Brookside Pavilion
That I often fondly remember,
When, flushed with wine,
We could hardly tear ourselves away
From the beautiful view at sunset.
Returning late by boat
When we’d enjoyed our fill,
We got lost and strayed
To where the clustered lotuses 
Were at their thickest.
     Pushing and thrashing,
     Pushing and thrashing as best we could,
We scared into flight
A shoreful of dozing egrets and gulls.

(trans. by WANG Jiaosheng)

如夢令 - 常記溪亭日暮 SCHERZO: One Sunset

Nowadays, AI has begun to demonstrate its significant impact on various aspects of human life, including music composition. In Logic Pro, I input the mode, chords, tempo, and style as commands to the software, and in an instant, it generated a segment of music with a lively texture based on the commands I provided. Within this segment, I extracted the notes C, ♭D, F, and ♭G, which were assigned by AI to the melody line, as the core of the first half of the piece, while the soul of the second half of the composition is derived from the melody of the ancient Guqin piece "Three Stanzas of Plum-blossoms ." Of course, both elements have evolved within this piece to the point where they are barely recognizable, even intersecting with each other.
People are accustomed to categorizing established music into certain styles. As a young composer, which path do I wish to follow? After composing this piece, I recalled the work "《杳杳寒山道》( yao yao han shan dao )" by the Tang Dynasty poet-monk Han Shan, which I had come across elsewhere: "The remote path of Cold Mountain, the desolate banks of a cold brook."During my creative process, I am essentially alone. Utter silence surrounds me. Although sometimes troubles and entanglements assail me like wind and snow, I can immerse myself in the exploration of sound, temporarily forgetting everything else around me. In this way, I am walking on my own path.In this way, I am walking on my own remote path of Cold Mountain. This path is characterized by uncertainty and is temporarily difficult to "locate" like a place on a map, hence the English name is SOMEWHERE BETWEEN.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN for orchestra

Jeremy Feng

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