Rising from the Sea's Depths to Touch the Celestial (for chamber music, 2023)

Bingyu Hall was built before the founding of the People's Republic of China and has become a piece of history today. The light green courtyard-shaped house witnessed the historical deeds of Shunde's "Celibate women". Some people say that they symbolize the awakening of women's "self-consciousness" in the context of a special era. I think they are also social epitomes of the spirit of pursuing the self-improvement of ordinary people. Many people and stories pass on at the end of time in history, leaving behind buildings, habits, conventions, and indelible spirits. The area of the Cantonese opera "Empress Flowers - Xiangyao" and the folk art "Dragon Boat folk arts of talking and singing", which are popular in the Pearl River Delta and other Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong, are used as a "tone". The stories of the Bingyu Hall are described under the four headings on Lingnan humanistic and folk customs I -"Little chick, curved tail" II -"Falling petals in the air obscure the moon" III- "Walking out of the street, dragon boat" IV- "A piece of ice shines on the Bingyu hall". Going through the waves of history and remembering the time that has gone by.

Bingyu Hall——Going through the Waves of History

The mosaic technique is an image processing method that utilizes principles similar to those of the decorative art of tessel lation. This method degrades the details of color gradations in specific areas of the image and creates the effect of disrupted color blocks. The aim of the work is to create raw sound material for chamber music through electronic production techniques, and to develop the material through a range of software such as Ableton Live 12 Suite audio effects processing as a compositional method.The entire piece was composed using monophonic techniques, shaping the soundscape by building on the central axis of the E-tone to create expansions, contractions, abstractions and center of gravity displacements of color. The timbre is electronical ly altered to create a new sense of “wind”.

Mosaic Material Wind

There is one in the Shishu Xinyun (New Sayings of the World), which describes Sun Tzu Jing's return to the mountains and forests. It says, "Pil lowed on a rock and rinsed his mouth with stream water". The idea was to rest on the rocks in the forest, listen to the music of the pine breeze, and gargle with the stream, so as to wash away the troubles of the world. However, it was a slip of the tongue and became "gargling with stones and pil lowing with streams". Wang Wu Zi asked: "Can a stream be pil lowed and a rock be gargled?" Sun Zijing replied, "I want to wash my ears in order to pil low the stream, and I want to sharpen my teeth in order to gargle the stone".
I read here, greatly pleased, marvel led at the al lusion to so "poor and hard, do not fal l the wil l of the clouds" outlook on life, floating thought of Romain Rol land said, "There is only one kind of true heroism in the world, that is, after recognising the truth of life is stil l love". Feeling the bones of the literati, openness in the world, and promote the righteousness of mankind.

Call of Waterprovoking Stones

Gently Sniffing the Roses

The music of Southeast Asia has a characteristic flavor and makes people enter a state of 
meditation. Many cultures have some kinds of magical music which can free one’s spirit 
out from the body. Generally it is repetitively mechanically performed by an instrument or 
through a dance. By the time going on, people enter psychedelic states gradually.This is 
known as ‘dedication’ to communicate with the gods.
It makes me feel the fantastic interaction between music and humanity.
This piece uses the pith materials which are similar to Gamelan music composed with the 
techniques of Minimalism music and a logic-like digital as in games. I want to express this 
alternately mechanical and clever music through stretches of breath.

Astral Trip

The tone colours of ethnic instruments are as richly ornamented and roughly wrought as the famous Chinese special metal craft of filigree enamel. The totemistic carving and inlaying techniques leave a legacy of structural and spatial beauty behind the representations of colours and shapes.  
The beauty of this totemic, orderly and morphologically varied layout also follows the natural logic of proportions in architecture and music. Looking at the ‘shape, pattern, colour and light’ of filigree enamels, and associating them with music, ‘shape’ - the sense of proportion within the structure; ‘pattern’ - the sense of gain of the original vocabulary and its variants; ‘colour’ - the sense of hue presented by different musical parameters; ‘light’ - the sense of space beyond the control of the music's modulation.
The piece attempts to render a mathematical aesthetic of pre-determined layout and an air of meaning with a residual white space by means of a concise musical language.


Falangcai Porcelain

commissioned by Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation & Witten (Germany) University 2009, premiered in Witten on April 16th, 2010. The version was performed by Ensemble intercontemporain, 2015, Shanghai

Poem - Dusk (2010)

DUO (铎) was commissioned by Arts Council of Korea, this piece was premiered by world-renowned Daegeum performer Yoo Hong and Sheng performer Wu Wei in Soeul on December 10, 2015.

Focus

“鐸”DUO (2015)

performed by ELA Ensemble & LI Cong (Clarinet), Nov. 2011 in Heluting Concert Hall, Shanghai, China.

Rising from the Sea's Depths to Touch the Celestial (for chamber music, 2023)

Zhuen YU

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