Commissioned by the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, in celebration of their 60th anniversary

Yangqin Solo: Reylon Yount
Cellos: Audrey Chen, Sophie Applbaum, John Lee, Ryan Song, Brian Zhao

I. Prelude (0:00)
II. Aria (4:26)
III. Rondo (7:51)

The yangqin, or Chinese dulcimer, has a fascinating history. The Chinese name translates as "foreign instrument;" indeed the yangqin is traced back to Persia (modern day Iran), from where it spread both Westward, to Hungary, and Eastward, via the Indian Ocean and over the Silk Road, to China. The yangqin's rich past inspires me to explore the sights, sounds, and smells of travel, layered within the dulcimer's timbre. I am particularly interested in the confluence of pitch choice and tone color; different combinations of the former create substantially different sound worlds within the same instrument.

Intent on focusing on the yangqin, I support it with a cello ensemble, and then present the materials in a traditional three-movement concerto form. While a combination of Chinese and Western musical traditions inspire the musical raw material, the piece is less "about" either than a space where multitudes and contradictions can coexist.

Concerto (2016): for yangqin and cello ensemble

Marco-Adrián Ramos is a Mexican-American composer whose potent and eclectic music spans a variety of media including works for voice, instrumental and electroacoustic ensembles, and dance.  
   His work has been sought and performed by a variety of institutions and ensembles including the MATA Festival, FLUX Quartet, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, 45th Parallel, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Yale Philharmonia, the New York Youth Symphony, the Houston Symphony, ZOFO Piano Duo, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Emmanuel Music, the Aspen Music Festival, the Next Festival of Emerging Artists, and the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music. 
   Recognitions include three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, an artist grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, the Arthur Friedman Prize (Juilliard), the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the William Schuman Prize from the BMI Foundation.
   He currently is an instructor at the University of Arkansas, teaching classes on music theory and composition. Since the beginning of 2024, he has also worked as an administrator at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM).  
   Marco-Adrián holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University’s School of Music; cherished mentors have included artists like Mari Kimura, Melinda Wagner, Christopher Theofanidis, Derek Bermel, Gabriela Lena Frank, and David Lang.

Sam Wu's music "abounds in delicate colours, wisps of sound and sylvan textures" (Gramophone). Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life.

Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings and the Tasmanian Symphony's Australian Composers' School, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize. 

Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, Macao, and Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Dina Gilbert, and Benjamin Northey, violinist Johan Dalene, and shēng virtuoso Wu Wei.

Sam has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, Business Insider, Harvard Crimson, Sydney Morning Herald, Asahi Shimbun, People's Daily, CCTV, among others.

From Melbourne, Australia, Sam Wu holds degrees from Harvard University, The Juilliard School, and Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. He is currently on faculty at Whitman College, as their Visiting Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition. Sam's teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.

Cello Faculty in Shenyang Conservatory of Music，（Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music，DMA）