I wrote this piece in 2015 for clarinet, violin, cello, percussions, and piano. I was inspired by the French movie "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". The story is based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's book. 

Composer: Xue Ju

Justin Weiss, Conductor
Yongchuan Chen, Clarinet
Jiaqi Yu, Violin
Hannah A Kim, Cello
Ziyao Huang, Piano
Eli Geruschat, Rachel Gibson, Percussions

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

It's the recording of CME(Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble)concert presented on March 2, 2018.

Program Notes:
by Xue Ju

I was inspired by the poem Invocation – Blessing the Boat written by Robin Coste Lewis, which is a narrative poem consisting of fragmented words to visualize exhibitions of Western art objects.

As a museumgoer, what I find most intriguing in this poem is that Lewis uses words of different museum objects and subtly connects them. The mashing together of series of seemingly irrelevant words and concepts shows some special creative association among art objects throughout history. 

In my piece, the sound that emits every time inspires a comprehension and a visual emergence of its relative words in the poem. I try to present a reinterpretation of this poem through various music ideas that resonate me. For example, I make an association between a melody from a medieval old Roman chant Offertorium: Terra Tremuit with a sentence in Lewis’ poem, where the Roman chant appears in my mind when I access the old Roman art object as described by Lewis: 

“Alabastron eulogia ampulla.”

Sometimes I use the specific timbre or texture to present an object in the poem, such as the “Fiber beads”, “Coins”, etc.

At the end of my piece, you will hear several instruments and sounds in turns, which is exactly the same as the description in the ending section of the poem.

“Harp
                with Bridge      Harp
                                              Lute

   One-key
     Xylophone
                                              Slit

Gong
              Trumpet       Gong
Gong

 Mallet
  Whistle
 Rattle

 
  Drum”

Concert Reviews: http://clevelandclassical.com/oberlin-contemporary-music-ensemble-at-cleveland-museum-of-art-march-4/

Invocation – BLESSING THE BOAT

3 Reflections 
Anticipation-Transfiguration-Reflection

Written for and performed by Stephen Joven-Lee

premiere recording

Painting: First Station (from Stations of the Cross, by Barnett Newman)

3 Reflections (2018)

Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting)(2018) 
for alto flute and fixed media

Hexin Zhang, Alto Flute   
Xue Ju, Fixed Media

Première on April 26, 2018. @ Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin, USA

Abstraktes Bild

Improvised for a scene in Tian Yoon Teh's dance opera 'Embrace Me'

Scene

PERFORMED BY:
Duo Echoi

ABOUT:
Where do sounds come from? Perhaps they come from the people, or the things, that make them. But what if sounds should arise without any effort by you or I, or anything else? What if, out of thin air, there beckons forth a sound so fragile, so brittle, that it can only live long enough for us to hear it before it vanishes away — as if its birthplace seemed not to be the world, but in-stead our imagination? Do such sounds exist, then, in the mind, where being rescued by our thoughts, they become music? This, to me, is a lonely idea. For music soon becomes itself a thought, and a thought is a thing rather more like a ghost than a sound. Where, then, should I look? If these sounds do indeed exist outside of ourselves, then I like to think it is somewhere quite different. In a place between perception and action. Sounds are there, moving back and forth. Like traces of light on the wind.

Nothing from nothing (is black are white)

Performed by the Sourgum Experimental Vocal Ensemble.

Silence Of The Colors

A concerto for solo piano, luogo (4 percussionists) and ensemble. 
based on the music of  traditional Chinese opera

*composed for and premiered by Paul Celebi

Paul Celebi, piano
Tim Weiss, conductor
Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

Hao Zou- Woven Imprints (2018)

“Five Postcards From The Clouds” for 4 musicians was commissioned by New Music On The Point. The first performance was given by Jessie Nucho, Tony Arnold, Claudia Fuller, and Will Yager in Salisbury Congregational Church, Vermont, USA, on June 18, 2018

“來自雲中的五張明信片”靈感來源於宋朝詩人李清照一剪梅中“雲中誰寄錦書來”。 在李清照的詞中，她把雲的另一頭比作思念和愛的人，所以雲中的錦書意為愛人的情書

The title was inspired by a sentence from the poem “I Chien Mei,” “...who sent me an embroidered letters from the clouds?” was written by an ancient Chinese poet Qingzhao Li. In her words, the person who you miss and love is from the other side of the clouds. So “an embroidered letters from the clouds” means a love letter from that lover.

five postcards from the clouds, for 4 musicians (2018)

Of other spaces
for five spatialized musicians
Commissioned by Ensemble Fractales

Ensemble Fractales

Of other spaces (2017) [use headphones!]

Fiona Xue Ju is a composer, improviser, sound designer, and multimedia artist. As a contemporary music composer and producer, she wrote a variety of music for chamber ensembles, film, and multimedia collaborations. Her music has been praised for its “fresh-sounding ideas” and described as “aurally fascinating” (Cleveland Classical).

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Fiona Xue Ju

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