Tr i b u t e t o C h o u We n - c h u n g

Music by His Teacher, His Colleagues and His Distinguished Disciples

Pacific Rim Music Festival 2003
Raison d’être
The two programs on this double CD were presented at the Pacific Rim
Music Festival in 2003 at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They were
offered as part of the Festival’s tribute to Chou Wen-chung in honor of his
eightieth birthday. These twelve compositions, each by a different composer,
span the years from Intégrales (1925), by Edgard Varèse, to Edmund
Campion’s Melt Me So with Thy Delicious Numbers (2002). The composers
—Joji Yuasa, Isang Yun, Chinary Ung, Hi Kyung Kim, Edgard Varèse, Bright
Sheng, Zhou Long, Pablo Ortiz, Edmund J. Campion, James Tenney, and
Chen Yi—come from countries separated by many miles: Japan, South Korea,
Cambodia, France, the PRC, Argentina, and the United States. These works
were presented on two concerts (2 and 3 April 2003) during the Pacific Rim
Music Festival at the University of California, Santa Cruz. What brought
these works together is an individual who figures prominently in the lives of
the eleven composers: Chou Wen-chung (b. 29 June 1923).
Some of these composers—Bright Sheng, Edmund Campion, and Pablo
Ortiz—had conventional relationships with Chou: They were his students at
Columbia University.
In the case of Isang Yun, the details are hair-raising. Yun, among the earliest
Asian composers to come to the West, began attracting attention in the 1950s.
He had been living in Berlin but suddenly vanished; South Korean secret agents
had kidnapped him. Chou joined with Elliott Carter and called upon the White
House for action. They kept pressure up by participating in a panel discussion
broadcast by the Columbia University radio station. Ultimately, Yun’s release
was won. When Chou organized the 1990 Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo,
Japan, Yun was one of the principal participants.
Hi Kyung Kim was accepted by Yun as his last student while she stayed in
Paris (1988–90). Due to unfortunate political pressures, she was unable to
complete her study with him. She got to know Chou, invited him to her Pacific
Rim Music Festival in 1996, and they have been friends and colleagues since.
Zhou Long came from PRC to study at Columbia University with Chou,
and Zhou’s significant other, Chen Yi, soon followed. She joined him in the
doctoral program in composition at Columbia. She also served as Chou’s
assistant at the U.S.-China Arts Exchange. Since then, Zhou and Chen have
composed prolifically and had tremendously successful careers.
Chou met Joji Yuasa at an Asian Music Festival in Hawaii. Chou sensed
that Yuasa was different from most Japanese composers. Impressed by
Yuasa’s enthusiasm for electronic music, Chou encouraged Yuasa’s work,
supported his application for a position at the University of California at San
Diego, and has remained a close friend.
After hearing Chou’s Cursive, Chinary Ung, approached Chou hoping to
become a student. Despite Ung’s limited preparation, Chou kept the door open.
“Can you write a single melody,” Chou asked, “not relying upon any system—
not a pentatonic melody, a twelve-tone melody, or a tonic/dominant melody, but
a melody of pure expression and your own invention?” The test was successful.
Ultimately, Ung completed the composers’ program at Columbia. According to
Chou, “Even today, Ung’s independence in musical thinking is outstanding.”
James Tenney was Chou’s first student. Tenney had not gone to college
yet. He approached Varèse, who in turn referred him to Chou. Tenney’s
lessons were highly personalized, experimental, and exploratory. Tenney
went on to complete a Bachelor’s degree at Bennington College.
Chou’s relationship with Edgard Varèse is discussed in detail in the essay
on Chou. Suffice it to say that both men became deeply indebted to one
another for a wide variety of reasons.
As Hi Kyung Kim, the founder and Artistic Director of the Pacific Rim
Music Festival has so aptly noted, the Festival programs of 2003 honor Chou
Wen-chung’s life and his contributions toward communication between
Eastern and Western cultures. His remarkable vision, leadership and creativity
are representative of the aesthetic objectives and values of the Pacific Rim
Music Festival. The Pacific Rim Music Festival at the University of California,
Santa Cruz was founded in 1996.
 The Music
Chou Wen-chung (Yantai, China; 29
June 1923), a remarkable composer, scholar,
and teacher, moved to Wuhan (Hankow)
around 1930. It was there that his fascination
with music began. In 1937 when the Japanese
invaded China, he moved to Shanghai, which
offered both a fine municipal orchestra and
German and Czarist Russian refugee musicians
who taught and gave concerts. In this environ-
ment, Chou studied at the Shanghai Music
School (Yinyue Guan). Chou, having already
assembled a collection of Chinese traditional
music, began collecting recordings of Western
classical music. Under the guidance of an
Italian cellist in the Shanghai Orchestra, he also had his first encounter
with ancient Western modes. These modes are defined by their distinctive
configurations of half-steps and whole-steps as well as by the characteristic
motifs associated with those intervallic configurations. (For Chou, these
modes opened a path that led many years later to his Variable Modes.) In
the fall of 1941, Chou began studying architecture at St. John’s University.
The Pacific War forced him to flee Shanghai. (He penetrated the Japanese
Imperial Navy’s blockade on an armed junk.) At Guilin (Kweilin) in Guangxi
Province, he enrolled at Guangxi National University. Inspired by the ancient
gardens of the campus, he decided to become a musician or a poet.
As the Japanese advanced on Guilin during the summer of 1944, Chou
escaped once again—this time by jumping on board the last train departing
the falling city. He hitch-hiked to Chongqing (Chungking), where he completed
his BS degree at Chongqing University in 1945. Wang Renyi, the conductor
of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra, offered Chou a position in the
orchestra, but Chou realized that it would not be in his best interest to
become an orchestral musician in war-torn China.
Chou emigrated in 1946. He traveled first to New Haven, Connecticut,
where he had been offered a full scholarship to study architecture at Yale
University. Almost immediately, he forsook that path and set out for Boston,
Massachusetts. At the New England Conservatory, Chou studied with Carl
McKinley, William Storey Smith, and Nicholas Slonimsky. Smith introduced
Chou to the music of Edgard Varèse, whom Chou met in 1949. He became
a pupil of Varèse, then a friend, and eventually—at the request of Varèse
himself—the custodian of his music. Slonimsky’s great contribution to the
formation of Chou’s mature style was his advice that Chou study his
Chinese cultural heritage.
When the People’s Republic of China was formed in October 1949,
the allowance that Chou had received from his family stopped. He
followed his brother to New York City, where he studied briefly with
Bohuslav Martinu. Varèse also lived in New York. Although Chou knew of
Varèse, the person who was responsible for getting the two men together
was the composer Colin McPhee. Though confident that Varèse would be
the ideal teacher for Chou, McPhee warned Chou that any imitation of
Varèse would be fatal.
Chou’s “audition” piece with Varèse was his tone poem Landscapes,
which made a favorable impression. When the question of tuition arose,
Varèse told Chou that payment was unnecessary, preferring instead that
“someday you can give me a gong.”
During his apprenticeship with Varèse, Chou began to find his compositional
voice. Varèse encouraged the development of an intrinsic style, one rooted in
the persona of the composer himself. Varèse did not rely on formulas or theo-
retical models; instead, he held to the mantra “You have to find your own way.”
 Chou’s work with Varèse was conducted in accordance with the
ancient tradition of the master teacher and the pupil. In the modern
world, however, degrees from accredited institutions are prerequisites
to career advancement; thus, Chou enrolled in a Master’s program at
Columbia University, where he had already been taking courses. Chou’s
matriculated at Columbia began in 1952. His professor of composition
was Otto Luening. Chou completed his Master of Arts degree in 1954.
His graduation piece was the tone poem All in the Spring Wind.
At the conclusion of Chou’s Master’s program, he applied for and won
a Rockefeller Foundation research grant. From 1955 until 1957, he investi-
gated classical Chinese music—particularly repertoire for the qin—as well
as a related topics including “Chinese painting, calligraphy, poetry, and
philosophy.” Recognition of his achievements as a composer came in
the form of a commission in 1954 from the Louisville Orchestra for And
the Fallen Petals, and in 1958, his first commercial recording, Landscapes.
In that same year, Chou became a naturalized citizen of the United
States, and he landed his first academic post: This was as a Research
Associate in Music at the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.
In December of 1959, Chou established a professional relationship with
the prestigious music publisher C.F. Peters, the firm that has been Chou’s
principal publisher throughout his career.
Returning to New York City in 1960, Chou took academic positions at
Brooklyn College (1961–62), then at Hunter College (1963–64). While on
the faculty of Hunter College, Chou won an award from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters (1963). Soon after, Jack Beeson called Chou
to invite him to join the faculty of Columbia University. Chou took the
position, earned a promotion in 1968, and became a Full Professor in 1972.
In 1969, he succeeded Otto Luening as Chairman of the doctoral program
for composers. During the next two decades, he expanded the program and
diversified its student population. He spent more than a decade overseeing
the academic growth of the newly formed School of the Arts, established
the first graduate course on Chinese music, and taught the first Asian
Music Humanities course at Columbia.
Chou’s music integrates Western art music and traditional Chinese
music. His mature works employ Variable Modes that Chou derived from
the trigrams and hexagrams of the I ching (book of changes), which is
predicated upon three philosophical premises: the dynamic balance of
opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and the inevitability of
change. Chou Variable Modes can be used not only to organize pitch
content, but also parameters such as duration, timbre, and so on.
Chou’s studies with Varèse ended in 1954, but their friendship continued.
On 7 August 1965, Louise Varèse invited Chou to 188 Sullivan Street in
lower Manhattan. He met first with Louise, then with the eighty-one-year-
old composer, who asked Chou: “Will you take care of my music?” Chou
replied: “Yes, of course.” When Varèse died on 5 November, Chou made
good on that promise. The results include numerous painstakingly
executed editions of Varèse’s music, and the preservation of Varèse’s
musical estate. In 2003, Chou transferred the “Varèse Archive” to the
Paul Sacher Stiftung.
Chou’s work with Varèse’s estate, his responsibilities at Columbia
University, and an entirely new project—the establishment of the U.S.-China
Arts Exchange—led to a standstill in compositional activity following the
completion of Pien (changes; 1966) and Yün (resonance; 1969).
Chou’s Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange was inaugurated in
October of 1978. In 1979, Chou began broadening the scope of the
organization. Soon, collaborative projects involved personnel from
Taiwan, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and the Philippines.
The understanding of “arts” was broadened to include the performing
and plastic arts as well as architecture, fashion and textile design, urban
design, environmental protection, holistic medicine, historic preservation,
cultural conservancy, and tourism.
In 1989, shortly before his retirement from Columbia University in 1991,
Chou completed his percussion quartet, Echoes from the Gorge. Other late
works include his Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1992),
Windswept Peaks (1990), String Quartet No. 1, Clouds (1996), String
Quartet No. 2, Streams (2003), and Twilight Colors (2007) for flute, oboe,
clarinet, and violin, viola, and cello.
Windswept Peaks (June 1990), a consortium commission by the
Aeolian Chamber Players, is conceived as a double duo for violin/cello and
clarinet/piano. The four parts progress in pairs and are evolved from the
same pitch source. Six double modes, each with different ascending and
descending orders, transform themselves continually into each other. Four
of these are stated simultaneously on all four instruments at any given
time. These modes consist of interlocking pitches and reflective intervals.
They are, however, defined further by time, register, timbre, and loudness,
all of which join to shape the progression of each of the parts. The pro-
gression of vertical relations is in turn the result of the linear progressions
interacting with each other.
These structural principals are based on the philosophy of I ching (book
of change). The linear progressions, however, are guided by the concepts
of shufa, or the art of calligraphy, according to which, pressure, direction,
continuity, speed, and viscosity must be coordinated to propel the flow of
ink with desired contour, density, and texture. Despite these influences,
there is no intention to make the music “appear” to be “oriental” or Chinese.
The Chinese term for “windswept peaks,” shan tao, is an esthetic
expression that is widely used in literature, visual arts, and music—
particularly the music for qin (i.e., zither), which greatly influences my
musical thoughts. Shan means “mountain”; tao means “powerful waves.”
The cross currents of these waves of sound over mountain peaks can be
esthetically captured by the calligrapher’s brush with as little artificiality as
a single limpid stroke. Therefore, again, there is no attempt for Windswept
Peaks to sound programmatic or descriptive. Instead, as in calligraphy, the
goal is to internalize momentous events and emotions into a distilled artistic
expression through the coordinated flow of the four parts.
Windswept Peaks is dedicated to the spirit of the Chinese intellectuals,
traditionally known as wenren, meaning literally “men of the arts.” For
thousands of years, they have been the true leaders of society, giving
character to the Chinese civilization and serving as the conscience of the
people. Above all, they have given us some of the finest poetry, painting,
and music. Frequently suppressed and persecuted, they stand tall among
the mightiest peaks in the history of humanity. The image of windswept
peaks suggests the unadorned beauty of inner strength, as symbolized by
the gnarled pines and craggy rocks. Soon after I started composing this
peace, this stark imaginary began to permeate my musical thinking when
the tragic events of 4 June 1989 at Tiananmen took place.
Joji Yuasa (12 August 1929; Koriyama, Japan), a self-taught composer,
became interested in music while a pre-medical student at Keio University.
In 1952, he turned to music full-time when he joined the Experimental
Workshop in Tokyo. Since then, Yuasa has composed orchestral, choral,
and chamber music, music for theater, intermedia, electronic, and computer
music. From 1981 to 1994, he worked in music research and education at
the University of California, San Diego. Presently, he teaches at the Graduate
School in the Art Department of Nihon University and at the Tokyo College
of Music.
Projection for String Trio
I have been composing pieces under the same title since 1955, and
this turns out to be the thirteenth one. I took the word “projection” from
Jean-Paul Sartre’s “projet,” which I understand as expressing ideas and
intentions in terms of time and projecting them into the future. As with
Projection for String Quartet I and II, the task I faced was finding a way
of composing my own music without being constrained by the form of
string quartet, an old vessel that has been established for a great many
years. This particular piece lasts approximately twelve minutes and
includes extended techniques, inviting the listener onto a new journey.
Its unifying principles are atonality predicated on a twelve-tone row and
musical narrative developing along the axis of time. I emphasize this
narrative nature of sound because I am convinced that this offers the
greatest potential for the future of music that employs existing musical
instruments. (Joji Yuasa)
Isang Yun (17 September 1917; Tongyông, Korea–3 November 1995; Berlin,
Germany) began composing at fourteen. His formal training began at the
Osaka Conservatory and continued in Tokyo with Tomojiro Ikenouchi. Yun’s
opposition to the Japanese occupation resulted in his imprisonment from
1943 until the end of World War II. Winning the Seoul City Culture Award in
1955 enabled him to study in Paris and Berlin (1956–1959). In Berlin he
learned serial composition from the Schönberg student Josef Rufer. After
being abducted from Berlin and imprisoned in Seoul, South Korea from 1967
until 1969, he was released owing to international expressions of outrage.
From 1970 to 1985, Yun taught composition at Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste
(college of arts). His compositions include four operas, numerous orchestral
works, chamber pieces, and choral compositions. His style is marked by a
synthesis of the Eastern and Western musical traditions through the combina-
tion of East Asian performance techniques with European instruments.
Piri
Yun’s Piri (1971) was written for oboe, but Eduard Brunner played the
first performance on the clarinet. The piri is a traditional Korean instru-
ment similar to the oboe, and corresponding to the Japanese hichiriki.
This lively piece reflects the characteristics of piri music… In contrast to his
earlier pieces, the individual melodic lines of Piri are less melismatic. In this
piece, these melodic lines gradually expand. The extension of phrases and
their melodic compass stretches the breathing abilities of the player to the
maximum and suggests further expansion.
According to Yun, the theme represents a convict confined in a prison.
Although he is physically captive, his spirit is free to wonder far and wide.
The last part consists solely of multiple tones signifying his earnest prayer.
Chinary Ung (24 November 1942; Takeo, Cambodia) came to the United
States in 1964 to study clarinet and conducting at the Manhattan School of
Music. He studied composition with Chou Wen-chung and completed his
D.M.A. in composition at Columbia University in 1974. Since 1977, he has
taught at Northern Illinois University, Connecticut College, University of
Pennsylvania, and Arizona State University. He has been Professor of
Composition at the University of California at San Diego since 1995. In
1989, Ung’s orchestral piece Inner Voices was the first composition by an
American composer to receive the international Grawemeyer Award.
Grand Alap
The word alap refers to the opening passage of raga music. In the
music of India, the alap tends to display improvisational materials that
relate to the ensuing music, yet the alap is deep expressive. In Grand Alap,
the opening serves as a kind of ritual offering to all surrounding spirits
and is a request for permission to begin the performance. The subtitle,
“A Window in the Sky,” is a reference to the recent scientific discovery
(with the assistance of the Hubble telescope) of hundreds of galaxies and
perhaps relates to the expository quality of the work and its expansiveness.
 Grand Alap requires the percussionist to be male and the cellist to be
female, as each of them has a vocal part which is both separate and related
to their instrumental parts. Each of them is required to articulate certain
phonemes as well as to sing. Some of the phonemes are derivative of the
sounds used to communicate in regions of Southeast Asia, while others
resemble words in ancient languages. Grand Alap consists of countless
fragments strung together like beads on a necklace. Some of these
fragments bear distinct references to particular personae. The sections
entitled “Entering into Trance” and “In Trance” require the percussionist
to execute those fragments while in a kind of altered state, or as if thrown
into an unearthly dimension. In “An Angel Voice,” the cellist sings a musical
phrase with a pure and balanced expression, as if coming from a heavenly
place. “Rising On the Seventh Day” symbolizes a “rebirth” of the soul,
which is a reference to traditional Khmer theatre. (Susan Ung)
Edgard Varèse (22 December 1883; Paris, France–6 November 1965;
New York City, USA) studied with d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum (1903–5)
and Widor at the Paris Conservatoire (1905–7). He then moved to Berlin,
where he met Richard Strauss and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1913 he returned
to Paris, but in 1915 he immigrated to New York. At the time of this move,
all his compositions disappeared with the exception of a single published
song and the orchestral tone poem Bourgogne (1908), which he took with
him but destroyed toward the end of his life. His creative output therefore
effectively begins with Amériques for large orchestra (1921), which, for all
its echoes of Debussy and of Stravinsky’s early ballets, sets out to discover
new worlds of sound: fiercely dissonant chords, rhythmically complex
polyphonies for percussion and/or wind, and forms in continuous evolution
with no large-scale recurrence. His last years were devoted to projects on
themes of night and death, including the unfinished Nocturnal for voices
and chamber orchestra (1961).
Intégrales
Intégrales is the largest of Varèse’s ensemble pieces, both in the dimension
of its form and in orchestral size. The principal divisions in the form are as
follows: in Section I the open clarinet motive is developed by trumpet, oboe,
and clarinet, alternately, in high register, and in dialogue with sharply
articulated chords from the brass; unequal metrical units help vary the
repetitions; a short percussion passage leads to II, in which the same
thematic material is stated in the bass register in low horn accompanied
by low trombones and percussion, answered by a tutti in which a high
trombone, playing a new version of the original motive, is predominant.
Section III, an Allegro, is marked by a rapid trumpet figure in wide intervals.
This is followed by a Lento, a Presto, another Lento, and another Presto.
Section IV, the conclusion of the piece, opens with percussion alone. An oboe
solo follows. Fragments of the Presto interrupt this section, and the piece
ends with a return to the second Lento (Section III). (Chou Wen-Chung)
Hi Kyung Kim (15 March 1954; Seoul, South Korea) received a B.A. in
composition from Seoul National University, and the M.A. and Ph.D. from
the University of California, Berkeley. Currently Kim is a professor at the
University of California at Santa Cruz and artistic director of the Pacific Rim
Music Festival. Kim has won numerous honors, awards, and commissions
including the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters, a commission from the Serge Koussevitzsky
Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, another from the Fromm
Music Foundation, as well as a Fulbright Scholar Award, and more. Kim’s
most recent commissions include a string quartet for the Alexander String
quartet and a special project entitled “Commemorating World War II,”
commissioned by Meet the Composer, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Chamber Music
Society of Minnesota.
Trio Sori
Trio Sori is written based on the impressive sounds of insects that I
heard when I went to Korea in late summer of 2002. Sounds of maemi
(cicada), mosquito, and cricket moved my heart very much. In the garden
with lots of trees, maemis were singing constantly as if they were in the
choir; the whining sound of mosquitoes kept me awake at night; the sound
of crickets joined with maemi. I composed an ensemble piece for
daegeum (Korean bamboo flute), clarinet, cello with these insects’ sounds
in mind. This piece was written for Sound Clock Contemporary Ensemble
in New York. (Hi Kyung Kim)
Bright Sheng (6 December 1955; Shanghai, China) began piano studies
with his mother at the age of four. After graduating from high school during
the Cultural Revolution he was one of the first students accepted by the
Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he earned his undergraduate
degree in music composition. In 1982, he moved to New York, where he
attended Queens College, City University of New York, and Columbia
University. Among his main teachers were Leonard Bernstein, Chou
Wen-chung, Mario Davidovsky, George Perle, and Hugo Weisgall.
Sheng won a number of prizes in China and the United States. He was
the artistic director of the San Francisco Symphony’s “Wet Ink 93” Festival.
In that same year, he was composer-in-residence with the Santa Fe Chamber
Music Festival. In April 1992 he began a two-year tenure as composer-
in-residence with the Seattle Symphony; during 1994–95 he served as
Artist-in-Residence for the University of Washington.
Major ensembles and soloists around the world have performed Sheng’s
music. The highly acclaimed H’un (Lacerations): In Memoriam 1966–76,
his dramatic orchestral portrait of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, has
had performances by the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony,
Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore, San Francisco, Honolulu, Milwaukee
and Kansas City symphonies, and the Tokyo Philharmonic. Kurt Masur and
the New York Philharmonic performed H’un in six cities on their 1993
European tour, and it was featured at the 1994 Warsaw Autumn Festival
by Poland’s National Philharmonic.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Tanglewood Music
Center, Shanghai Symphony, Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia
Nazionale de Santa Cecilia, and Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society
have commissioned and performed works by Sheng. Individuals including
Leonard Bernstein, Peter Serkin, Yo-Yo Ma, Cho-Liang Lin, Gerard
Schwarz, David Zinman, and Hugh Wolff have done the same. His recent
premieres include Prelude for Orchestra (Houston Symphony, 1994), China
Dreams (Seattle Symphony, 1995), and Seven Tunes Heard in China (Yo-yo
Ma, 1995). The New York Philharmonic gave the US premiere of his
Fanfare No. 1: Arrows to the Page (February 1996). Spring Dreams, a work
commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Yo-Yo Ma and the National Traditional
Orchestra of China (February 1997), was subsequently taken on tour
through the United States. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra commis-
sioned Postcards (January 1998), a fifteen-minute orchestral work.
Sheng’s discography includes a recording on the Delos label of The
Song of Majnun with the Houston Grand Opera; and on the New World
label of H’un and chamber music featuring Peter Serkin, Lisa Saffer, and
the New York Chamber Symphony under Gerard Schwarz.
Four Movements for Piano Trio
Four Movements For Piano Trio was commissioned by the Walter W.
Naumburg Foundation for the Peabody Trio. The work was first performed
by the Peabody Trio at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City on
24 April 1990.
The folkloric style and prelude-like first movement of Four Movements
For Piano Trio is constructed through the use of heterophony, a device
typical of Asian music. The second movement of the work is based on a
humorous and joyful folk song from Se-Tsuan. In the third movement, a
savage dance, the melody grows through a series of “Chinese sequences”
(my own term to describe a type of melodic development each time the
initial motive is repeated, consequently lengthening its duration and
widening the tessitura). The last movement evokes a lonesome nostalgia.
(Bright Sheng)
Zhou Long (8 July 1953, Beijing) is a Chinese-American composer of
orchestral, chamber, and vocal works that have been widely performed.
Zhou began piano lessons at an early age. During the Cultural Revolution,
he was sent to a rural state farm, where natural scenes of roaring winds
and fierce land fires made profound impressions on him. In 1977, he
enrolled in the newly reopened Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
After graduating in 1983, he was appointed composer-in-residence with
the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra of China. He immigrated
to the United States in 1985 and is now a citizen. He completed his doctor-
ate in 1993 at Columbia University under the tutelage of Chou Wen-chung
and Mario Davidovsky. He received the Adventurous Programming Award
from ASCAP in 1999.
Dhyana
Dhyana (1990) for flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano, won the
5th International Composition Competition (1991) in d’Avray City, France.
It was inspired by the “cultivation of thought” in Buddhism. Dhyana is
the perfect absorption of thought into the one object of meditation, the
gathering and focusing of scattered thoughts to arrive at enlightenment.
The music is based on the concept of “knowing with clear mind,” of ven-
turing from existence into nothingness. The pitch content “progresses”
from complex to simple, the rhythms from dense to relaxed, the range
from tight to open, the timbre from colorful to monochromatic, and the
special disposition of sonorities from foreground to background. This
process expresses the transition from the mundane to the serene, and
ultimately to purification. In order to realize this artistic conception, the
distinguishing features of various instruments were fully employed. For
instance, the sounds of bells, chimes, gongs were suggested by playing
inside of the piano; the sounds of temple blocks and the various sonorities
of the guqin (Chinese zither) were recreated with string instruments;
the reciting style associated with the vertical Chinese bamboo flute was
transferred to woodwinds using glissandos and microtones. Dhyana is
dedicated to Chou Wen-Chung, Zhou Long’s teacher of composition at
Columbia University in New York City.
Pablo Ortiz (1 May 1956) studied in his native Buenos Aires, where
he received a degree from the Universidad Catolica. At twenty-seven,
he moved to New York to study at Columbia University. He is currently
Professor of Composition at the University of California, Davis. He taught
composition and was co-director of the Electronic Music Studio at the
University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994. The Buenos Aires Philarmonic,
the Arditti String Quartet, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music
Mobile, Continuum, the Helsinki Cello Ensemble, Les Percussions de
Strasbourg, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the
Theatre of Voices have performed his compositions. Festivals in Salzburg
(Aspekte), Geneva (Extasis), Strasbourg (Musica), Havana, Frankfurt,
Zurich, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City have featured his works.
He was a fellow at the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College (1986,
1988), and he won a commission from the Fromm Foundation (1992).
In 1993, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 he received the
Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 1997 and 1998, the Centro Experimental Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires
commissioned two chamber operas from him, Parodia and Una voz en el
viento. In 1999 the Koussevitzky Foundation commissioned Raya en el mar
for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. In 2000 he received a
grant from Fideicomiso para la cultura Mexico-US to write children’s
songs based on poems by Francisco Alarcon, renowned Chicano poet and
Mission artist. Recently, the Gerbode Foundation commissioned Oscuro
for Chanticleer and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (pre-
miered March 2004). His music—which includes chamber and solo works,
vocal, orchestral, and electronic compositions, and music for plays and
films—has been issued by Albany Records.
Hipermilonga alla Thomas Bernhard
Hipermilonga alla Thomas Bernhard is an attempt to translate into music
some of the characteristic obsessive behaviors present in Bernhard’s literary
works. The piece has a tangoesque surface, where simple motives develop
slowly but passionately. It was written for the Verdehr Trio.
Edmund J. Campion was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1957. He completed
his Doctorate in composition at Columbia University in New York City.
Between 1989 and 1996 he lived in France where he studied with Gérard
Grisey. In 1993 he was selected by the IRCAM reading panel to pursue the
“Cursus de composition” and was commissioned by IRCAM to compose
Natural Selection (1996), a large-scale work for interactive electronics and
midi-grand piano. He is now Professor of Composition at the University of
California, Berkeley, where he also serves as the Composer in Residence at
the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. Recent projects include
a Radio France Commission (1999) for l’Autre, created in collaboration
with the poet John Campion, and the ballet Playback (commissioned by
IRCAM and the Socitété des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) in
collaboration with the choreographer François Raffinot.
Melt Me So with Thy Delicious Numbers
Melt Me So with Thy Delicious Numbers is written for solo viola with
live computer accompanist. The poetic line is lifted from a text by Robert
Herrick (1591–1674) entitled To Music, To Becalm His Fever. I became
familiar with this otherwise lackluster poem after hearing several song
settings by other composers including those of Elliott Carter, Paul
Hindemith, and Ned Rorem. (Edmund Campion)
James Tenney (10 August 1934; Silver City, New Mexico–24 August
2006; Valencia, California) grew up in Arizona and Colorado, where he
began his training as a pianist and composer. He attended the University
of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College (B.A. 1958),
and the University of Illinois (M.A. 1961). His teachers and mentors included
Eduard Steuermann, Chou Wen-Chung, Lionel Nowak, Carl Ruggles, Lejaren
Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo, Edgard Varèse, Harry Partch, and John Cage. A
performer, composer, and theorist, he was co-founder and conductor of
the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in New York City (1963–70). A pioneer
in electronic and computer music, he worked with Max Mathews at the
Bell Telephone Laboratories in the early 1960s to develop programs for
computer sound-generation and composition. He wrote works for various
media, both instrumental and electronic, many of them using alternative
tuning systems. He wrote articles on musical acoustics, computer music,
and musical form and perception, as well as two books: META / HODOS:
A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Musical Materials and an Approach to
the Study of Form (1961; Frog Peak, 1988) and A History of “Consonance”
and “Dissonance” (Excelsior, 1988). A teacher since 1966, he was
Distinguished Research Professor at York University (Toronto), where he
taught for twenty-four years, and last held the Roy E. Disney Family Chair
in Musical Composition at the California Institute of the Arts.
Harmonium #5
Harmonium #5 is one of a set of pieces—all based on the same harmonic
progression moving through the circle of fifths—for various instrumental
combinations. The piece is a fairly strict canon, in three voices, at the fifth,
with an eleven-bar entry-interval. Its formal-rhythmic structure is of a type
first explored by John Cage in the late 1930s, in which the number of seg-
ments in a piece is the same as the number of measures in each segment
(here, eleven), and measures are grouped within each segment in the same
proportions as segments are grouped within the piece as a whole (in this
case, as 5+3+3); accordingly, the work is dedicated to John Cage. The
Array Ensemble and the Ontario Arts Council commissioned the piece.
Chen Yi (4 April 1953; Guangzhou, China) is a prolific composer who
blends Chinese and Western traditions. She won the Charles Ives Living
Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. She is
the Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of the University of
Missouri, Kansas City, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts
& Sciences in 2005. She completed her Bachelor and Master degrees in
music composition at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and the Doctor
of Musical Arts degree at Columbia University, New York City. She studied
composition with Wu Zu-qiang, Chou Wen-chung, Mario Davidovsky, and
Alexander Goehr. She has been composer-in-residence for the Women’s
Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and the Aptos Creative Arts Center (1993–96)
with support from Meet The Composer. From 1996 to 1998, she taught
composition at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.
She has won fellowships and commissions from the Guggenheim
Foundation (1996), American Academy of Arts and Letters (1996), the
Fromm Foundation (1994), the Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the
Library of Congress (1997), and the National Endowment for the Arts
(1994). Honors include a first prize from the Chinese National Composition
Competition (1985), the Lili Boulanger Award (1993), the NYU Sorel Medal
Award (1996), the CalArts/Alpert Award (1997), the UT Eddie Medora King
Composition Prize (1999), the ASCAP Concert Music Award (2001), the
Elise Stoeger Award (2002) from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center, the Friendship Ambassador Award from Edgar Snow Fund (2002),
an Honorary Doctorate from Lawrence University (2002), and UMKC
Kauffman Award in Artistry/Scholarship (2006). The Chinese Ministry of
Education appointed her for three years beginning in 2006 as Changjiang
Scholar Visiting Professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music.
Her music is published by Theodore Presser Company, performed world
wide, and recorded on Bis, New Albion, CRI, Teldec, Nimbus, Cala, Avant,
Atma, Hugo, Angel, Albany, Koch International Classics, Delos, Centaur,
Eroica, Capstone, Quartz, New World, and China Record Company.
Qi
Qi uses a combination of western instruments to create Asian sounds
and to express my feeling of qi (also written as chi; it is a name for the life
force). It is untouchable, mysterious, yet strong and powerful. It melts into
air and light, like the space in Chinese paintings or the dancing lines of
Chinese calligraphy. It is also the spirit in the human mind. In this work,
Chen translates qi into music in a quite free and slow tempo. Passages of
dense textures create tension. These are the sounds of the inner voices
and spirits of human beings experiencing this eternal power. (Chen Yi)
The Artists
Ensemble Parallèle, founded in 1993 by Artistic Director Nicole Paiement,
specializes in contemporary music and multidisciplinary art. Striving to make
new music both accessible and visible, the ensemble fosters interactions
with other artistic media. Under Paiement’s baton, Ensemble Parallèle has
completed over ten world première recordings that range from music by
Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison to commissioned works by Elinor Armer
and Dusan Bogdanovich. The ensemble has toured in California, performing
for the Pacific Rim Music Festival, the April in Santa Cruz Festival, and pre-
senting the première of Korean-American composer Hi Kyung Kim’s theater
piece Rituel III at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. In the summer of 2004,
the group toured in Australia and participated in the Asian-American-Australian
Sound-Dance and Multi-Media Connections.
Paiement is also the Director of Ensembles at the University of California
at Santa Cruz and the Artistic Director of the New Music Ensemble at the
San Francisco Conservatory. In 2002, Paiement, with the support of the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music, founded the BluePrint project. Through
BluePrint and Ensemble Parallèle, Paiement has commissioned many works
from an international roster of composers.
Paiement has conducted and recorded many new operas including
Harrison’s final version of Young Caesar. She has been guest conductor
for the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Contemporary Opera
Company, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Kochi
Ensemble from Japan, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Monterey
Jazz Festival Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and the
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Paiement has recorded for Mode Records,
New Albion, Kleos, and MSR records.
Empyrean Ensemble offers audiences opportunities to hear original
works by emerging and established composers. They have premiered nearly
two hundred works at many prominent music festivals and concert series.
Empyrean has recorded two CDs (Centaur and Arabesque labels) and has
been featured on others recordings. Founded in 1988 by composer Ross
Bauer as the ensemble-in-residence at UC Davis, Empyrean Ensemble now
consists of seven core musicians and is co-directed by composers Laurie
San Martin and Kurt Rohde.
J. Karla Lemon has conducted performances throughout the United States,
Canada, England, France, Italy, Germany, and China. She led the Stanford
Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York City, and performed with
them in London and Paris. Lemon is known for innovative programming
and for her advocacy of living composers. She has conducted and recorded
premiere performances of works by Joan Tower, Philip Glass, Chen Yi,
Eric Moe, Wayne Peterson, Libby Larsen, and Ellen Taafe Zwilich. After nine
years as Director of Orchestras at Stanford University, Lemon was appointed
in 2002 as conductor of the University of Pennsylvania and the Delaware
County Youth Orchestra in Philadelphia.
—Mark Radice (Musicologist, Ithaca College School of Music)
Producer: Hi Kyung Kim, Artistic Director, This CD is made possible in part
Pacific Rim Music Festival by the support of the University
Mastering Engineer: William Coulter of California Santa Cruz Arts
Notes: Mark Radice Research Institute and the
Cover art work: from Chou Wen-chung’s music sketch Spiralis Music Trust.

WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM
TROY1064/65 ALBANY RECORDS U.S.
915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207
TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643
ALBANY RECORDS U.K.
BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD
TEL: 01539 824008
© 2008 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA
WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL.
DDD