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

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.