A short piece for string trio and electroacoustic tape (stereo .aif master). Composed in 2001. 

Pär Frid, Ana - strings trio & electroacoustic tape

Viper Snake (2020) for ratchet, daxophone and electronics
Total Duration 8' minutes.

Ensemble Holophony Project
Preview Full Score at https://www.panayiotiskokoras.com/compositions/
Studio edited mix © Panayiotis Kokoras

Viper Snake [ratchet, daxophone & electronics]

Uli Fussenegger - Bastimentos_Remix

synthesizer sketches and software experiments from summer 2023

06 06 23 (birds)

New Ec0-existence is an electroacoustic composition for stereo or multi-channel arrays. This piece was composed and recorded at Laboratory for Immersive Arts & Technology (LIATe), the Hong Kong Baptist University and his home studio, where I sculpted noise to explore spectromorphological approaches in acousmatic music. New Ec0-existence was developed through recording sound samples, analysing recorded sound samples, and organizing and processing the samples. The 500 samples recorded feature air sounds along with non musical instruments and traditional musical instruments. One of the sounds is releasing air from balloons which produces a sustained tone in high register. All the sound recorded is then layered, timestretched, modulated to orchestrate a realistic simulation of space in nature. The piece produces a 3D space with ambisonics environment to mimic nature sound, and aims to raise awareness of the ecological crisis we are facing through the use of electronics music.

New Ec0 - Existence BINAURAL

The idea of this work came from an image of the century-old Bayan trees on Bonham Road – not of the painful-looking barren stumps that remained when the quartet was axed in 2015, but of the silent growth of sprouts and small branches that have gradually crowned the stumps over the past years. How the forces of nature silently respond to the brutal external disturbance was a moving spark of inspiration, and the idea grew to an exploration of prospering and perishing phenomena in our surroundings. This piece addresses the seeming inevitability of all things that started out pure, simple, and beautiful ending up in chaos, mayhem, and destruction; but there are also the inklings and seedlings of survival and regeneration reaching out of the stumps that could potentially prosper into a renewed state of magnificence.

In this piece, there are contrasting pairs of thematic, motivic, and harmonic materials that correspond to the conflicting forces of prospering and perishing. Materials of “prospering” are derived from the Cantonese melodic contour of Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi’s Farewells on Grassland; materials of “perishing” are derived from the Cantonese melodic contour of Yuan dynasty poet Ma Zhiyuan’s Autumn Meditation. 

The piece wakes up calmly with ambiguous harmonies derived from “prospering” materials, setting up the piece with non-aligned textures in string harmonics and faint suggestions of the “prospering” motif spread among the orchestra. The theme of “prospering” is first announced by a solo violin, which is then imitated across a growing string sections at different tonalities, decorated by winds; as the clear melodic line grows into chaos through poly-temporal imitation (similar to the phasing technique but with each line playing at a different tempo), the melodies recede into a harmonically static background, making way for a brass chorale based on the ornamented version of the motif. The chorale soon pushes the piece to its first climatic moment, where one can first hear suggestions of the “perishing motif” (a descending major seventh interval), despite still being in the realm of the prospering language. 

The climax is forcefully overtaken by a dissonant superimposition of the “prospering” chords and transitioned to an unfolding canvas of multi-colored brasses, with each of their pitches forming the beginning part of the “perishing” theme. At this moment, remnants of the “prospering” materials are still to be found in the background as slowly descending chords played by the violas and cellos. The “perishing” theme completely takes over when the strings once again perform a different form of imitative counterpoint, which gradually builds up to an emotionally-charged tutti section that includes the only complete statement of the perishing theme. (The melody inspired by Autumn Meditation in its entirety). After the climactic statement of the theme, the opening textures return with varied harmonies – a mixture of the “prospering” and “perishing” materials.  Against a familiar pointillistic backdrop of string harmonics, a nostalgic clarinet solo sings a melody integrating both motifs, bringing the music back to a state of calmness and uncertainty. 

Farewells on Grassland (excerpt) by Bai Juyi (772–846)
The overwhelming grass on the plains
Flourish and perish each year:
Never consumed by wildfire
And ever revived by the wind of the spring. 

Autumn Meditation by Ma Zhiyuan (1250–1321)
Wilted vines, aged trees, crows cawing at dusk
Adorn a narrow bridge, a flowing stream, and homesteads about. 
On an ancient road, in the westerly wind, stands a gaunt horse.
The setting sun in the west 
Leaves behind the heart-wrenched at the end of the world.

Times of Prospering and Perishing 枯榮之間 (Hong Kong Sinfonietta; Wing-sie Yip)

~ Drops ~ (2017)
for saxophone quartet

premiered by the 
Quartet Iberosudamericano

18th World Saxophone Congress
in ACADEMY OF MUSIC Fran Lhotka Hall

The piece was initially commissioned by the association "Friends for Music" of Venaria Reale and was presented in parts by the Vagues saxophone quartet, Toniro – Italy, September 23rd, 2017.

~ Drops ~ (2017), for saxophone quartet

Performed by Hong Kong Children's Choir and conducted by Dominic Lam.

Psalm 23 is the twenty-third psalm from the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament of the Bible. Written by King David of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, the text describes God as a good shepherd who protects and takes care of His sheep. This piece is set to the Chinese version of the text to be sung in Cantonese. It is a work written for the suffering souls. May the lost sheep soon reunite with their shepherd and find peace at the ‘quiet waters’. 

本曲以舊約聖經《詩篇二十三篇》之中譯本入詞，原文由以色列王大衛所寫，以牧羊人比喻上帝，說述衪如何保護與照顧追隨自己的羊群。本曲以粵語演唱，謹為正受苦難的人們而寫，願迷途的羔羊能早日重遇牧人，找到 「可安歇的水邊」。

Psalm 23 for SSA choir and piano (Cantonese)

Rhino (2017) for baritone saxohpone and electronics
Total Duration 8:55' minutes.

Ensemble Holophony Project
Preview Full Score at www.panayiotiskokoras.com/en/works.html
Studio edited mix © Panayiotis Kokoras

Rhino [bari sax & elec]

Spiraling Dreamscape
Commissioned and first performed by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra on 14th November 2019 at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center conducted by Jaap van Zweden

This past summer, I realize that many of my composer colleagues share the experience of hearing their “own work” in a dream – a work that has never been written but believed to be written by oneself while dreaming. The dreamed-up music is often exquisite and filled with surprises, yet it is always challenging to put down or remember the music in the waking moment.

Through melodic, timbral, and textural variations of a single theme, this work depicts the musical thoughts spiraling at the edge of dreams. Using the Cantonese contour of the phrase “dashing, gliding, and spiraling” from Professor Laurence Wong Kwok-pun’s poem Listening to the Zheng Performance of Chen Leishi, I created multiple versions of a theme so that the implied text could be understood when sung in Cantonese. (Cantonese is a tonal language that uses pitch to differentiate meanings; therefore, words can only be correctly perceived if the pitches of successive syllables correspond to the lexical contour of the text. Since there are multiples musical intervals that could fit into two successive linguistic tones, different melodies can be created out of the same text without hindering perception of the words. The upward glissando at the beginning of the theme came from the rising tone of the first character of the phrase.) 

The theme is first faintly suggested in the cascading waves of string harmonics that begin in the center then ripple across the orchestra. The theme grows more prominent as the muted brasses enter one by one, each playing one successive note of the melody. Over a gradually shifting harmonic prism, the woodwinds would soon imitate the brasses’ materials. When low instruments enter, the theme would be clearly stated for the first time by the strings and brasses. The theme and its fragments would again spread to the entire orchestra, building up to a climactic moment where frenzied melodic lines juxtapose and abruptly freeze. 

May all the good dreams becomes reality. 

夢迴翻飛

這年夏天在不同音樂節與其他作曲家交流時談到創作的經歷，發現不少人試過夢見「自己的作品」：在夢中以為是自己的創作，夢醒時才發現根本從未創作過那樣的作品；夢中的音樂往往充滿驚喜、精妙絕倫、前所未見，可惜夢迴之際卻難以記錄下來，此後也再難回想起來。

這部作品試著記錄樂緒思潮在夢的邊緣翻飛、綻放的狀態，為單一樂句帶來多重音高、音色、織體的變化。旋律主題借用了黃國彬詩作《聽陳蕾氏的琴箏》中半句「俯衝滑翔翻飛」為創作基礎，同時以粵語音調抑揚作為旋律音高變奏的框架。（可以留意有上行滑音起首的樂句，其上行滑音來自陰上聲的「俯」字。）弦樂的泛音波浪由樂團中心蔓延開去，主題在交織的弦樂中隱約可以聽見；經弱音的銅管和逐步加入，每人負責演奏旋律的其中一個音，隱誨的主題慢慢變得明朗，木管亦加入模仿銅管的素材，弦樂和弦亦隨著主題的變化緩緩展現不同的色彩。一輪推進之後，低音樂器終於加入，由中提琴、大提琴率先奏出線條明確的主題旋律，並再次把素材擴散至整個樂團，樂曲在各自忙碌的喧鬧樂段中「驀然在高空凝定」，翻飛的樂緒也戛然而止。

但願夢中所見所求的美，能夠化為現實。

Spiraling Dreamscape (HKPhil; Jaap van Zweden)

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, this year's Sonology final exam concerts were all cancelled. We have therefore created a playlist with a selection of works that were all mixed for headphones, so that at least we can share some of our music with our audience.

Michael Kraus: Butterfly Effect (binaural) MMus 2

Lam Tin Yan, Marcus, is a Hong Kong sound composer and trumpet player who studies acoustic, acousmatic, and live electronics composition at the Hong Kong Baptist University under the guidance of Dr. Eugene Birman, and electronics with Dr. Christopher Keyes and Dr. Stylianos Dimou.
As a composer, his string quartet Hidden Fruit premiered on the RTHK Radio 4 by the Romer String Quartet as a finalist in the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild New Generation Composer 2023. He was the trumpet improviser and recording artist for the new multidisciplinary work in City Contemporary Dance Company’s recent show, Living Up to Death that ran in Freespace in West Kowloon Cultural District. He was also awarded the best performer in the Renaissance Foundation Content Creator Camp 2023 for his multi-disciplinary work, What’s Moon’s Gender? He was recently selected as a finalist in the second NC Wong Young Composers Award 2023-24. 
As a pop musician, he programmed sound for 2022 International Arts Carnival, in the theatre play produced by Hong Kong non-profit art organization Every Life Is A Song. He also played trumpet and flugelhorn in the global tour of cantopop artist Terrence Lam at the O2 Arena in the UK, and The Venetian in Macau.

New Ec0 - Existence BINAURAL

Marcus Lam

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