Concert #2: Traveling Through Time and Cultures Concert Series

Concert #2 - 'Traveling Through Time and Cultures': A Concert Series of Contemporary Classical Music for Hong Kong Communities
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Concert #1: • Concert #1: Traveling ...
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Welcome to the 'Traveling Through Time and Cultures' Concert Series!
Hong Kong has seen challenging times in recent years and this series is intended to remind Hongkongers of the beauty, talent, and creativity that abound in the city. These online concerts are inspired by and dedicated to Hong Kong, and all the performers are based in Hong Kong. The series is also based in part on The Spirit of the Adventurers Concert Series, which was presented in collaboration with the Hong Kong Museum of History in 2018 celebrating the occasion of the Miles Upon Miles: World Heritage along the Silk Road exhibition.
In addition to original footage from that series, the concerts feature the world premiere performances of four new works inspired by Hong Kong and written especially for this series - accompanied by video of stunning Hong Kong scenes. Inspiration for the new music comes from Stanley and the Murray House, iconic Canto pop melodies, Hong Kong writer Xi Xi’s work, and reflections on an ever-changing Hong Kong. The series features music by living composers and the audience will have a chance to hear from the composers in their own words as they introduce their works throughout the programs. This project is supported by a grant from the Hong Kong Baptist University. Many thanks to the composers, performers, and help behind the scenes that have made this possible!
More information: bit.ly/3v2QOPe
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P R O G R A M M E:
16:48 YAO Chen: Miles Upon Miles for solo violin (2018), I. Silk Road
21:30 Kai-Young CHAN: Stanley Susurrus for violin and fixed media (2020) [World Premiere], I. Murray Murmurings, II. a boat going nowhere
35:38 ZHOU Long: Chinese Folk Songs for String Quartet (selections)
44:50 Charlotte TONG (student composer): Floating City (浮城) for String Quartet (2020) [World Premiere]
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P E R F O R M E R S:
Patrick Yim, violin
Ho Wing Lok, violin
Cheung Chun Wang, violin
Yeung Pok Yin, viola
Ng Weyman, cello
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P R O G R A M M E N O T E S:
YAO Chen (yaochenmusic.com): Miles Upon Miles, I. Silk Road
The ancient Silk Road facilitated the transmission, in ways both mysterious and rich, of
materials and cultural ideas at a time when extended travel was more or less impossible.
Sound was a constant companion on these journeys through deserts, mountains and rivers, and the incorporation of new sounds into the performing traditions of a plethora of cultures unleashed an unstoppable force in the course of music history: the free flow, across borders and cultures, of sound itself.
Miles upon Miles is my personal meditation on three of the myriad facets of this trade
route, or more broadly of zones of transition in general, and also on three ways of violin
playing.
The first movement, Silk Road, makes strong use of tremolos and trills to evoke a specific
atmosphere, which is presented right at the beginning, a simple ascending motif from which the entire piece expands. The rhythmic momentum relents here and there, to heighten the degree of expression, before ultimately fading into a mood of peaceful acceptance.
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Kai-Young CHAN (www.chankaiyoung.com): Stanley Susurrus
Stanley Susurrus is a collection of two pieces inspired by the surroundings of Stanley and they can be performed as a set or separately. The first piece, “Murray Murmurings”, captures the variations in light, shadows, and sound around the historic Murray House, a Victorian-era building in Hong Kong. The stone columns, the turning antique fans, the shimmering sea, the splashing waves, and the slowly-morphing colours of the dusking sky were all part of the transforming gestures of the violin.
The second piece, “a boat going nowhere”, is scored for violin and fixed media. The fixed media mainly consists of pre-recorded violin fragments; the violin plays a soloistic line that is designed to sound like it triggered a wave of reactions in the fixed media as if poly-temporal canons are unfolding in various scopes and timelines. The piece was inspired by the many boats that are harboured around the shore close to the Murray House in the Stanley Bay. These boats are always floating around the same spot, and despite their seemingly free movement along with the tides, they never go anywhere. They almost portrait a kind of yearning to go somewhere, dreaming of reaching a faraway shore, and yet they are stuck here and tied to the rocks, watching the larger ships sailing away - which is not unlike what most of us are going through right now. What tied us to the rocks?