I encountered the title of this piece while reading a book on alchemy and mysticism. The book points out that alchemists were always ready to bring out twelve ideas, one of which reads: “The below is as the above, and the above as the below, to perfect the wonders of the One.” I find this phrase to be quite inspiring in the context of writing a piece of solo music, because the concept of “below” and “above” can map onto instrumental registers quite nicely while being represented on one instrument.
	The below is as the above, And the above as the below progresses mainly in a linear fashion, in which it starts hanging softly high above, in a narrow intervallic span, then goes lower and lower, louder and louder, while the intervallic span expands wider and wider.
	This piece is written for and dedicated to Ashley Walters, whose talent and support made this piece possible.

The below is as the above, And the above as the below

Two Elastically Centered Canons explores the contrapuntal relationships between two wind instruments. When two instruments are having a close conversation, I often feel the conversation is elastic, hence the title of this piece. Two Elastically Centered Canons is written for and dedicated to flutist Carla Copeland-Burns and saxophonist Susan Fancher, may them find the same playful joy in this piece as I did.

Two Elastically Centered Canons

Yakusugi Image explores a rainy soundworld.

Piano: Kevin Der
Electronics: Huijuan Ling

Yakusugi Image

In an ideal world, after a whale’s death, the body sinks all the way down to the bottom of the sea. The body degrades, nourishing the environment which has supported the whale for its entire life. This is a harmonious cycle: what gained its form from the sea eventually, after the end of its life, gives that form back to the sea. But this harmonious cycle may not always be the case: because of the ultrasonic pollution, usage of GPS, and humans dumping waste into the sea, whales are finding themselves confused and dying stranded inharmoniously on the beach. The image of two dead whales, one laying on the beach with its body all twisted and crushed, and one silently sinking down to the deep sea, inspired this piece. In silence and noise, Standing, Whalefall reflects on the inharmonious and harmonious decay.

Stranding, Whalefall was originally written for Zhudi, Pipa, Erhu, Morin Khuur, Violoncello, and Percussion, and is rearranged in 2021 for the Weekend of Chamber Music.

Emi Ferguson - Flute
Mari Sato - Violin
Caroline Stinson - Cello
Chris Lennard - Percussion
Ieva Jokubaviciute - Piano

Premiered on July 24, 2021, at 2021 Weekend of Chamber Music, Eddie Adams Barn, Jeffersonville, NY.

Stranding, Whalefall (live)

Recorded on February 8, 2022, at Ruby Lounge, Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University. This piece is made possible through the generous support of Ciompi Quartet, and this piece is commissioned by Ciompi Quartet as part of their Portfolio Project 2021.

Eric Pritchard - Violin
Hsiao-mei Ku - Violin
Jonathan Bagg - Viola
Caroline Stinson - Cello

Audio recorded and edited by Mark Manring (https://www.manring.net)

Program Note:      

Ondulation explores different forms and speeds of a gentle rising and falling motion. In Ondulation 1, this wave-like motion takes a more subtle form at a slower speed, whereas in Ondulation 2, the undulating motion is carried out directly on the surface level with a fast arpeggiation figure. To me, “ondulation” also means to move forward in a cyclic yet linear motion and eventually reach a certain spot. Following this line of thought, this piece also explores, in a non-monolinear fashion, two different possibilities for reaching the ending shared by movement 1 and 2.

Ondulation is commissioned by and dedicated to the Ciompi Quartet. I am most grateful for their support of Duke University’s graduate composers and the local community here at Durham, and I hope they will enjoy this piece as much as I do.

More info: https://www.linghuijuan.com
Find the premiere video on: https://youtu.be/6fjAKBEumtU

Ondulation

Recorded by Imani Winds on March 28, 2022, at Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University.

Audio recorded and edited by Mark Manring (https://www.manring.net)

Program Note: 

I encountered a phrase in August of 2020, which can be roughly paraphrased as "in the scattered world, we seek the wholeness, that is, the healing of the fragmented personality." I found this phrase to be especially appropriate amid the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to write a piece that aims for a journey of rediscovering the whole. 

"Rediscovery" suggested that I rebuild an already existing sound world. In these uncertain and trying times, I find myself resorting to Messiaen's music a lot and constantly finding his courage, his hope to be inspiring to me. Therefore I made a harmonic reduction of the “Louange à l'Immortalité de Jésus” movement of Oliver Messiaen's Quartet For The End of Time, then used this reduction as the structure for my piece. Messiaen's movement has two large phrases, with chords 1-6 shared between phrase one and phrase two. I turned the shared chords into a short prelude, directly titled as Messiaen Homage. I then used the rest of Messiaen's first phrase in my movement 1, Toward a Reunion, in which the quintet gradually moves toward a synchronized ending. The rest of Messiaen's second phrase is found in the second movement, Toward a Divergence, in which the quintet gradually de-synchronizes from a unison.

Toward A Rediscovery

I wanted Around G to be complete enough that it could be a stand-alone piece, but also incomplete enough that it can be an integral part of my dissertation. As a result, I found myself thinking a lot about unrealized potential while writing the piece, and I attempted to restrain myself from thinking about the endless possibilities we can realize and instead considered only what is needed to reach a relatively steady closure.

Around G explores the sonic space around the pitch G, and is written for fellow explorers at the 2022 nief-norf summer festival.

Maria Castillo - Flute
Darius D. Edwards - Soprano Saxophone
Rachel Richards - Percussion
Huijuan Ling - Piano
Jayla Tang - Conductor

Dress rehearsal recording. Recorded at Powell Recital Hall, University of Tennessee Knoxville, on June 15, 2022.

Around G

Recorded on July 19, 2022, at Biddle 065, Duke University, Durham, NC.

Huijuan Ling - Harpsichord

Program Note:

Those Cold Winter Rains is written in homage to Toru Takemitsu, in which the beginning three notes of Takemitsu’s Rain Dreaming are referenced. I aim to use this piece to explore different sonic possibilities of the harpsichord, and this piece is an experiment of disruption, disrupted repetition, and continuation.

Those Cold Winter Rains

The Poetics, in seven movements, is a large ensemble work for flute, saxophone, two percussionists, two pianists, and string quartet. Metaphorically, The Poetics explores the possibility of coexistence and stems from a credence (naive or not) that no matter what we believe or what our political/social views are, most people are kind and they care about the local communities within which they live. Society is a multilayered network consisting of individuals, small and large communities, connected in ways one person cannot often see. Caring exclusively for our local communities without also understanding the network of hidden connections confines society, and often makes us ignorant of other people’s needs. We can be more mindful of other people’s needs by embracing larger, close-knit communities that are often unseen to us. This is the motivating idea behind The Poetics. The Poetics explores a musical realization of the hidden connections within a multilayered network. The seven movements are Prelude, From Afar, Around G, Interlude, Gently Morphed, Arcs, and The Poetics of Harmony. 

Possibilities for Partial Performance:
	If one wishes to play the piece as a 20 minutes set while still preserving the gist of the narrative arc, one might perform the following movements as “The Poetics Suite I”: Prelude, From Afar, Around G, Gently Morphed, The Poetics of Harmony. From Afar, Around G, Gently Morphed, and Arcs can be programed as individual pieces.

Sarah Frisof - Flute
Susan Fancher - Saxophone
Sae Hashimoto - Percussion 1
Russell Greenberg - Percussion 2
Laura Barger - Piano 1
Julia Den Boer - Piano 2
Hsiao-Mei Ku - Violin 1
Eric Pritchard - Violin 2
Jonathan Bagg - Viola
Caroline Stinson - Cello
Verena Moesenbichler-Bryant - Conductor

Recorded by Mark Manring at Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University, Durham, NC. March 20-21, 2023.

7. The Poetics Of Harmony

6. Arcs

5. Gently Morphed

4. Interlude

3. Around G

2. From Afar

1. Prelude

Holds was premiered by Utario Duo on March 29, 2023, at Kemp Recital Hall, Illinois State University, 2023 Red Note New Music Festival. 

Haruka Fujii - Marimba
Rika Fujii - Vibraphone 

Program Note: 
“Holds” are features of conducting technique corresponding to changes in musical time, such as interruptions, fermatas, tempo changes, and so on. While composing the present piece I have been reading about the conductor’s performance of holds, and I started to realize that the essential question with this is never “how long to hold” but “how can we get back at it,” or “how can we plunge back into tempo” after the hold. Or, “are we ever going to get back at it?”

Thus, Holds explores different lengths of fermatas, and the performance of flow. I invite for performers’ interpretations of how they can “get back at it” after these holds. The harmonic language of the duo is created from the parsimonious movement of one pair of perfect fifths to another. Holds is written for Utari Duo to be played at the 2023 Red Note New Music Festival at Illinois State University, Normal, IL.

Holds

Silence In Between is inspired by the process of dissolution—I find it fascinating to see an effervescent tablet or a drop of food coloring gradually dissolving into water. Inspired by this idea, the piece is entirely built on four progressions and extensions of them (in a very liberal sense, see notes below). Those four progressions are elaborated, stretched, stacked vertically, or laid out linearly. Starting from the beginning, the dissolving process of these four progressions gradually slows down canonically, diminishing along the way, and almost reaches a single-note state in the “Still Center” section. Then these progressions build back up from there, finally reaching the final “Unravel” section, which reveals the piece’s only melodic idea. Therefore the piece can be considered to realize a “V” structure: instead of developing, the music unfolds through thinning out, slowing down, then gradually building back up. 

Toru Takemitsu stated in his book Confronting Silence that “the dolphins’ communication takes place, not in their sounds, but in the length of silences between the sounds.” I find this statement to be very inspiring, hence the title of this piece. Therefore the full structure of this piece is: four parallels dissolving slowly, reaching the “silence in between,” then “un-dissolving” back up toward the end.

Silence In Between

Rainy Days is a set of pieces for harpsichord and electronics that are very close to my heart. The name Rainy Days is quite literal: I took a one-minute recording of almost all the rain that occurred in Durham, NC, from March 1-June 30 (excluding the two weeks when I was out of town). I also wrote some prose accompanying them, mainly to remind myself what they were and how they felt to me.

Rainy Days is divided into three volumes, and each volume is about 10 minutes in length. Volume 1 is about March 2022.

Recorded at Biddle 065, Duke University
Harpsichord - Huijuan Ling

Rainy Days Vol. 1

Fusion

Aero

Paradoxical Archetype(2016)

Composed by Huijuan Ling

Performed by Huijuan Ling

The subtitle of this piece is “Meditation on a Fugue in f minor,” and the aim of this piece is to smoothly mix a fugue into an either characteristic harpsichord texture or percussive sounding texture. This piece blends three different musical characters: a “quasi” 17th-century fantastia, a fast linear passage, and a fugue in f minor. This piece is dedicated to the 17 th-century master Johann Jakob Froberger.

Paradoxical Archetype

First Reading at E1630, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, by CCM Orchestra, 12-02-2015.

Premiere at Patrica Corbett Theater, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, 04-20-2016.

Conductor: Yael Front.
CCM Philharmonia Orchestra.

...Toward... is inspired by a "V" structure. Over the course of the piece, the music travels towards the bottom of it and then to the top. The bottom of the "V" can be conceived of as sea level, with everything past that line resting beneath the water. The underwater section is realized quite literally through a clarinet solo that is buried by the fluctuating colors and gradual building up of string textures. The clarinet solo line is picked up by the trumpet later on, from then on functioning as a transition — towards the moment your head emerges from the sea gasping for air.

...Toward...

Collaborated with Zhixin Xu.
Text by Li Yu (李煜)

Soprano: Mengchun Yang
Live electronics: Zhixin Xu

2016-04-11 A View From the Edge

Lang Tao Sha

Wobbly Wobbly Wobbly is a play of "wob-ble" and "wob-bl-y," and is inspired and dedicated to my fat cat for our fifth anniversary. Special thank you to all of my amazing performers for bearing with me.

For Melodica, Violoncello, Percussion, and Piano.

Wobbly Wobbly Wobbly

Diagonal Swing is inspired by a weird story I heard at the end of September this year: one of my past teachers, one day, on his drive back home somehow sensed the upcoming danger at an intersection, so he decided to stop several feet away from the intersection while waiting for a stoplight. This turned out to be a brilliant decision: a couple of seconds later, a car driving by a drunk driver swung out of nowhere, and if my teacher had stopped at the intersection instead of several feet away from it, he would have been hit by the car for sure. This story was jokingly titled “Diagonal Drunk Driver” later, and the driver’s swing is the inspiration of this piece.

Diagonal Swing

Huijuan Ling is a composer and keyboardist currently based in Durham, NC. She likes to draw her inspiration outside the boundaries of the wobbly concept of Western art music and enjoys the process of discovering and negotiating a sound world that feels authentic both to her and her collaborators. Her music has been performed by ensembles and musicians such as the Ciompi Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Imani Winds, JACK Quartet, Line Upon Line Percussion, Patchwork Duo, cellist Ashley Walters, pianist Gloria Cheng, Kris Rucinski, and others. In 2022, her woodwind quintet "Toward a Rediscovery" won the first prize in the fifth International "New Vision" Composition Competition from the New York Dance & Arts Innovations; in 2021, she was awarded the William Klenz Prize in Composition from Duke University; in 2020, she was among the recipients of the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and in 2019, her harpsichord solo "Those Cold Winter Rains" won the third prize in the SIMM 2019 International Harpsichord Composition Competition. 



Upcoming projects and collaborations include The Poetics, for flutist Brandon Patrick George from Imani Winds, saxophonist Susan Fancher, Yarn/Wire, and the Ciompi Quartet; as well as Rainy Days, a set of pieces for harpsichord and electronics written for herself. Huijuan’s works have been presented in calls for scores and conferences such as Yarn/Wire International Institute, Weekend of Chamber Music, Nief-Norf Summer Festival, Line Upon Line Winter Composer Festival, and Midwest Composer’s Symposium.



As a keyboardist, Huijuan enjoys collaborating with ensembles and frequently serves as a performer for student composers’ works. As a performer, Huijuan is particularly interested in contemporary music and baroque music. She participated in Nief-Norf Summer Festival in both 2019 and 2022 as a composer-performer fellow, and in 2017, she was the harpsichord soloist for R. Murray Schafer’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Eight Wind Instruments with CCM Chamber Winds. 



Huijuan is currently a PhD candidate in Composition at Duke University, studying composition with Stephen Jaffe and harpsichord/organ with Robert Parkins. She received her MM at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and her BM at Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Huijuan Ling

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