From the film Hungry Ghost Festival

Director: Sophia Du
Sound Design and Mix: Amanda P.H. Bennett, cAMP Studio
Music: Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio
Erhu, Zhonghu, Violin: Steve C. Chiu
Dizi, Shakuhachi: Shih-wei Wu

Hungry Ghost Festival

Perpetuation (2022) for violin and huqin (erhu and zhonghu)

This duet piece was commissioned by and dedicated to Patrick Yim and Xiao Dong Wei.

It was intended to merge western and oriental culture with both traditional and contemporary arts as a perspective concept in this piece. The title, “Perpetuation” implied an endurance thought in sound and it may sustain or prolong an image, view, or memory from time to time being even the fading of the tone color, the decay of the object surface or transform of the status.

Composer attempted to combine both western and oriental string instrumental sound to create a special and unique sonority to express a cross-cultural idea. The Chinese title suggested six strings of four violin strings blended with two huqin strings. The musical elements in this piece were used for communal and derivative in both instruments. Traditional and contemporary musical techniques were employed in both western and oriental ways as well.

Perpetuation (excerpt)

Stephen Yip’s music have been described as post-modernist in style, with Asian roots, gives the inner colors of an advanced spatial sense…….
Yip was born in Hong Kong and now living in U.S.A. He received his doctor of musical arts (D.M.A.) at Rice University and bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, studied with Law Wing-fai, Clarence Mak, and Arthur Gottschalk. He has attended major music festivals including: Wellesley Composers Conference, Aspen Music Festival, Asian Composers’ League, ISCM World Music Days, Chinese Composers’ Festival, IMPULS Ensemble Akademie, Luxembourg, the International Summer Course for New Music, Darmstadt, Germany, Wellesley Composers’ Conference. Residencies include: the Atlantic Centre for the Arts, Yaddo Colony and MacDowell Colony.
Yip’s works have been performed in the Asia, Europe and America. He has received several composition prizes, included “Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award”, “Taiwan Music Center International Composition Prize”, “Robert Avalon International Prize”, “Singapore International Composition Competition for Chinese Orchestra”, the ALEA III composition Competition, and the 2010 Alvarez Chamber Orchestra Freestyle Composition Competition, London, England. His works are recorded in the ERM-Media, PARMA, Capstone, North South recording, Ablaze records, ATMA Classique, and Beauport Classical labels.
Yip is a member of the SCI, NACUSA, and ASCAP. Currently, he is on the music faculty at Houston Community College and works as a freelance composer.  More information: www.stephen-yip.com

Composer based in Los Angeles with a passion for cinematic music.

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