SKU: HL.48025214

ISBN 9781784544485. UPC: 196288133421. 8.25x12.0x0.157 inches.

Er Huang was commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New York where, in 2009, it received its world premiere with solo pianist Lang Lang and the Juilliard Orchestra under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. Chen wrote about the work, 'Music has its own life – for me the germination of any musical work is like a tree growing out of the ground, and the eventual outcome of this life is entirely unknowable in advance.' Commenting on the connection between Er Huang and its source of inspiration, the Er Huang tunes from the classical Peking Opera repertoire, he says that, 'the way I applied musical elements from Peking Opera to my own writing was not really based on musicological studies. Rather, these tunes were an essential part of my childhood in Beijing, and always intertwined with memories of my family and the society I lived in at the time. Many people from my generation would be able to hum these tunes by heart. These days, however, these familiar tunes have been almost entirely forgotten, as the younger generation is much more occupied by western pop culture. This is why, when I quote these tunes, Ioften do so with a great sense of nostalgia. Traditional Chinese music has a very strong character, and the organic assimilation of something that I feel most akin to, over time, into my own musical language, has become an essential part of my artistic expression.'.

SKU: PR.114416840

ISBN 9781491101285. UPC: 680160625239. 9 x 12 inches.

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the ensemble Music From China commissioned Chen Yi for a new work, which became Three Dances from China South, scored for Chinese instruments. Its three descriptive movements (Lions Playing Ball, Bamboo Dance, Lusheng Dance) are each inspired by folk dances from the southeastern provinces of China.
Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, the two-movement trio Tibetan Tunes was written for the New Pacific Trio (Igor Veligan, violin, Nina Flyer, cello, and Sonia Leong, piano). It was premiered at the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific on Jan. 27, 2007 in Stockton, California.The first movement is inspired by the Tibetan folk tune “Du Mu” as played on a recorder (Xiongling). This music presents the rich gestures of Du Mu (the name of a god in Tibetan Buddhism) in a serene mood.“Dui Xie” is a kind of Tibetan folk ensemble music using the same tune in the introduction and coda, played with the plucked instrument Zhamunie, the bamboo flute, and the fiddle Erhu, often performed with singing and tap dancing. The pitch materials of this movement are drawn from folk ensemble music and the lyrical Tibetan folk song “Amaliehuo.”.