Yiguo Yan received fellowship from Fontainbleau festival in France. "Seven Poems" was premiered when Yiguo's in residence of Fontainbleau, France in the summer of 2011.
Large Chamber for two Narrators, String Quintet, Piano and Six Wind Bells.
Premiered in Fontainebleau, France, July/2011.
First Violin: Elizabeth Derham
Second Violin:Mariam Machaidze
Viola: Cecilia Torrecillas
Cello: Sofia Nowik
Bass: Gabriela Marx
Piano: Natalia Kazaryan
Male Narrator: Alexander Ullman
Female Narrator: Yiguo Yan
Conductor: Mahir Cetiz
Poet: Yiguo Yan
Composer: Yiguo Yan

Poems (in Chinese)
白色：
白色的野花
开满了我整个荒诞的梦境
白色面对我
摘下它浩瀚的面纱

那是无边无际的空虚
也是无孔不入的痛苦

黑色：
残忍的大风
带走了我的爱情
只剩下永恒的疑问
我那神秘、深邃的幻想
终于凝结成了黑色的冰

粉色：
趾高气扬的媚俗
排斥着我的单纯与绝对
朋友们关心的只是我的粉色面具
而非空洞的事实

我带着少女时代的梦
小心翼翼地走进成人世界
梦还未实现
就已经碎了

绿色：
我实在不愿被你看见
已经破碎不堪的灵魂

它曾经骄傲地辉映着天空的繁星
它曾经温柔的抚摸着爱情的甜蜜

直到现在它终于明白
是谜一样的肉体
欺骗了它

黄色：
比黑夜更毒辣的是阳光
比阳光更毒辣的是目光

一柄愤怒的剑
从我的心中穿膛而出
如同一道残酷的神谕

原来谁都无力改变
这份用血书写的命运

我背负着毒辣的目光
四处流浪
足下的鲜血
灌溉着刺眼的黄土地

红色：
红色的泪
把这些恶毒的流言蜚语冲刷干净
从此 我躲在雾中
拒绝回忆

红色的血
把那迷失已久的自我
呼唤回来
从此 我躲在梦里
拒绝虚伪

愤怒无休无止
伴随着我渲泄才华的激情

蓝色：
梦中
我理想的爱人来到我身旁
他理解我的忧郁，欣赏我的孤独
并小心翼翼地维护着我脆弱的自尊
霎那间
冰冷的蓝色把我扎醒
无辜的眼泪
消失在柔软的蓝丝绒里

我的情感
饱蘸淡蓝色的墨水
就像天空一样的透明
一样的飘渺

Poems (in English)
White:
The wild white flowers /Are full of my fantastic dreams/White once face up to me/Devoid of its veil of immensity/White is the boundless emptiness/And the all-pervasive pain

Black:
The heartless violent storm/Robs me of love/ leaves me/Only the eternal questions/My mysterious and deep delusions/Finally condense into a mere square of black ice
  
Pink:
The arrogant and vulgar/Excludes my purity and the absolute/Friends care only for my pink mask/But not the barren innermost being/I collected my girlhood dreams/Entered the cruel adult world with utmost care/But the dream will never come true/It is already broken

Green:
I hate that you find out/The soul that already fragmented/scatter over the merry green land/it once flashed the stars in the night/It once stroked the sweetness of love/But now/The soul finally understands/The riddling body has deceived it

Yellow:
Sunshine is more arid than night/But sight is even more arid than the sun/It is an angry sword slashing from my heart/Piercing out from my heart/As a cruel oracle/But, surely/ Nothing can alter the fate that is written by my blood/I suffer the arid sights/I wander forever/The blood from my feet/Irrigating the blinding yellow ground
  
Red:
Red tears/ Wash out all the evil rumors and slanders/Thence/I hide in mist/Reject memories/Red blood/Calls out self that was lost so long ago/Thence/I hide in dreams/Reject hypocrisy/My rage is without end/And directs my passion and my talent/The ultimate catharsis
 
Blue: 
In dreams/My ideal love comes to me/He knows my melancholy/He admires my loneliness/He protects my fragile pride/But suddenly/The icy blue awakens me/Innocent tears fade into the soft blue velvet/My feelings/ Are full of baby-blue ink/ As
 transparent as the sky/As wispy as the sky

"Seven Poems"---Yiguo Yan, Premiered in France, 2011

Divergent Trajectories presents a struggle between two opposing manifestations of individualism. The first section of the work takes the form of a process fugue—a kind of operation-based musical texture in which each voice works independently to execute a prescribed series of tasks that, in the case of this work, ultimately transform the means by which pitch material is generated. In this system, individualism is based on the autonomy with which each member goes about discharging their assigned duties. It gradually becomes apparent, however, that this form of individualism is based on a fundamental flaw, as the freedom with which each member can express their individuality is eclipsed by the rigidity that the texture demands.

The latter section of the work presents an alternative approach, one that is marked by struggle, but ultimately arrives at collective triumph. Here, each instrument’s individual freedom is intrinsically connected to the expressive freedom of the ensemble as a whole. As the collective creative power of the ensemble grows, so too does the freedom of each instrument to express their individuality by staking their own unique path through the music. The result is a transcendent collectivism that, instead of suppressing individual freedom, sublates it.

Recorded at the 73rd Composers Conference at Wellesley College in July, 2017 by the Conference Ensemble (James Baker, director). Performers are Barry Crawford (flute), Benjamin Fingland (clarinets), Gabriela Diaz (violin), Joshua Gordon (cello), Steven Beck (piano), and James Baker (conductor).

Divergent Trajectories

Broken Face 碎脸 - Soprano/Ensemble/Electronic

Written for and performed by the JACK Quartet (January 2018).

Christopher Otto, Violin
Austin Wulliman, Violin
John Pickford Richards, Viola
Jay Campbell, Violoncello

During the Spring of 2017, I traveled to nature preserves throughout Northern California, hiking through valleys, mountains, forests, beaches, ridges, streams, ponds, and lakes in search of magical moments in the wild when the complex sounds of the earth fall into sync and become music. Among these locations are El Corte de Madera Creek, Thornewood, Big Basin, Windy Hill, Pescadero Marsh, Bedwell Bayfront, Skyline Ridge, Loch Lomond, and Yosemite National Park.

Songbird features original natural soundscape recordings from Windy Hill, alongside the birdsong of a variety of species, including the Redwinged Blackbird, California Quail, American Coot, American Crow, Steller’s Jay, Pileated Woodpecker, Nutall’s Woodpecker, Marsh Wren, Pacific Wren, a rafter of Wild Turkeys, and three subspecies of Song Sparrow.

On the Lost Trail at first light, you can hear the magnificent dawn chorus of countless birds as they swirl about in a shroud of thick, pale mist, howling wind, and drizzling rain. Not long after, at the great precipice of Hamms Gulch, an airplane soars across the Eastern horizon, passing through the rising sun as the forest awakens in golden light to a symphony of birdsong...

Dedicated to my dear friends Brian Cook, Christopher Rispoli, Jeremy Wexler, and Justin Nickell

"Songbird" for String Quartet (2018) | JACK Quartet

This piece of music was inspired by a poem called “A Song in the Cave”, written by a Chinese female poet Shuying Cao, at her age of 19.
The poet told me that she was born in the north of China, so to herself, the cave of snow in this poem means a hometown, a shelter, and a place of departure. But the young girl in this poem seems to suffer a lot and be hurt a lot. So as a feminist, I abstract the meaning in this poem and want to express the complex emotions between a father and a daughter and the complex relationships between a patriarchal society and a young feminist. Briefly speaking, I just want to express how a young feminist struggles to rise from the patriarchal swamp after deep confusion and pain. So I’d like to create many gestures ascending from the low range up to high range, on the heel of which immediately falls down, or be beaten down, but finally succeeding in the high range like spray shining under the sun. And too many gestures in the low range symbolize the depression she suffers.
And I’d like to use the envelopes of attacks and feedbacks, or the distortion of the envelope (i.e. the reverse, the recombination of the envelopes, etc.) as my main materials and gestures.
Le trou de neige was firstly composed for an ensemble of ten players, while this version is for orchestra. It was premiered by Israel Contemporary Players, conducted by Zsolt Nagy in September 2016. 



A Song in the Cave
 
By Shuying Cao

The cave of snow
The cave of snow at the bottom of the sea 
    My cave of snow 
Endlessly entangling seaweeds and souls with cyanosis 
But it was granted by my father 
My cave of snow 

At the bright and aching bottom of the sea 
The feminine cave of snow, that cicatrizes everything, 
Is only suitable for the young girl to live in.
All the things that can move me
Are there.
A soft sun, branches, and
Carved purple female birds scattering on the ground
How I eager being together with these things right here
For a life-long time

The young girl, who thoroughly understands the tragedy and cannot find the nature of life,
The young girl, who is blue or violet,
Practicing to mend herself in the snow of cave,
And from tomorrow, starting to expect 
A shining sun 

The cave of snow in my father’s friction ridge, and
The girl who has exhausted his last solemnity
Are blazing shining,
Over the sea for thousands of years.

Le Trou De Neige II

This piece for large orchestra was inspired by a poem, "Lamp Lighting", written by Mr. Chen Dongdong, one of the most influential poet in contemporary China.
Lamps shine in the dark night, so I use descending fragments with darker and darker harmonies and gradual changing timbres to portray the falling of the night, in between of which was inserted with materials of superposed perfect fifths, to depict the glittering colours of lamps, lighted “into a stone”, “into a river”, “raised high on a mountain”, and “fly up from the forest”. This piece begins from the dusk and ends with the dawn. It expresses that only love and faith just like our lamps, support us to go forward, in the dark night of our personal life.
This piece was dedicated to those who have granted us love and beauty of life. It was premiered by Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zhang Liang, in November 2016.


Lamp Lighting

by Chen dongdong

Shine the lamp into a stone, make them see
the shape of the sea in it, make them see
ancient fish in it
you ought to make them see the light too，a lamp
raised high on a mountain 

The lamp should also shine into a river, make them see
living fish, make them see a soundless sea
you ought to make them see the sunset too
a firebird fly up from the forest

Light the lamp. When I use my hand to block the north wind
when I stand in a narrow gorge
I think they will crowd around me
they will come to stare at my words like lamps

(1985)

[Translation by Joseph Donahue, Chen Dongbiao with Zhang Er]

Lamps, and Slices of the Night

Portrait: Flowing Water, for large orchestra (world premiere)
When writing this piece, I was inspired by WOMAN, the most famous series of poems by Zhai Yongming, the well-known poet and feminist in contemporary China. This piece is dedicated to her.
Since ancient times, women have been compared as water in traditional culture of China. Woman in love, is tender as water, hoping to be treated equally as a real friend. But in the poems, WOMAN, by Zhai Yongming, this woman in love suffers such a lot that “vomit out her heart”.
An ancient music for qin, FLOWING WATER, was to express the preciousness of friendship. So, I mainly use as the central pitches in this piece, the inversion, retrograde and all kinds of expansions and compressions of a series of pitches, A C D F G A, which origin from Chinese ancient music for qin, FLOWING WATER, to ironically show that this woman cannot be respected equally as a friend by her lover. And meanwhile the textures which sound like flowing water, indicate the image of the woman changing from the limpid streams into deep and gloomy ocean, and finally, into the furious and beastly flood.
This is the portrait of women in my heart, sometimes tender, and sometimes violent, full of passion and longings inside, just like the flowing water.

This piece was premiered by Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zhang Liang, in November 2018.

Portrait: Flowing Water

Yu-Fang Chen, violin
Mei-Chun Chen, viola
Performed at Ball State University; Indiana; February 2019
Program Note:  
Hive Mind, as applied to humans, is a relatively new term, defined as the collective thoughts, ideas, and opinions of a group of people regarded as functioning together as a single mind. Sure sounds like chamber music performance to me…

Hive Mind for Violin and Viola Duo

Yiqing Zhu - The Hither And Farther

Yiguo Yan is a winner of The American Prize in professional Category, a native Chinese composer studying and working in US. Her music has been played in China, America, Italy, France and Austria, with conductors Mahir Cetiz, Jeffery Means, Noah Sivan and Zsolt Nagy. Yan’s other winning awards including "Shanghai New Music Week 2016 international call for score", The First Prize of “Nancy Van de Vate International Composition Prize for Opera” (Austria), The First Prize of “Marion Tournon-Branly” outdoor performing art music directing (France), the First Prize of Shanghai chamber music composition competition (China), Her two chamber music composition for Chinese traditional instruments have been awarded by Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and Shanghai Conservatory “Xiang-Yin” composition competition for Chinese instruments. Yan has been awarded scholarship from Mannes College of Music, Brandeis University and UMKC. Her received fellowships including Fontainebleau Festival, Cortona New Music Session, Thailand International Composition Festival, Shanghai New Music Week, and Brevard Music Center. Yiguo Yan has been interviewed by the New York City ICN television station, Kansas City Johnson County Library, The New Women Weekly Newspaper and China Music Weekly Newspaper. She has received commission from NYU Zen Arts Concert and Johnson County Library “Listen Local” Project. The public radio weekly show “Music of our Mothers” in Maryland, America has broadcasted Yan’s music. Yan is also a featured artist in “Music of our Mothers” radio show’s companion website and Johnson County Library.

"Seven Poems"---Yiguo Yan, Premiered in France, 2011

Yiguo Yan

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