Despite their geographic and historical separation, Lu Pei sees these two cultural areas as having produced musical styles that share certain qualities. Scenes through the Window was strongly influenced by various facets of American popular music and by aspects of folk music from ethnic minority groups in remote areas of southern China. In 2006 the China Education Ministry appointed her Changjiang Scholar Visiting Professor at Beijing's Central Conservatory. Her music has been commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin and Yo-Yo Ma the Cleveland Orchestra the BBC, Seattle, and Singapore Symphonies and the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics. A graduate of Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music and of Columbia University, she recently received the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The large repertory of performance techniques for the pipa is used to translate the flowing energy of the brush-its flourishes and arching strokes, the different touches of the brush, the subtle shades of light and dark ink-and create musical imagery that is rich with timbral colors, textures, and dynamics.Ĭhen Yi is a distinguished professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. The melody consists of musical points plucked with the fingers.
Although the title refers to the contact points between the brush and paper that commence and characterize the eight strokes, "points" also aptly conveys the nature of plucked string music.
The form and structure of the piece are based on Chen Yi's impressions of the movements and gestures of the eight standard brushstrokes in the zhengkai style of Chinese calligraphy. The work is also known as The Spirit of Calligraphy. The Chinese title for The Points is Dian. He was the Music Alive Composer-in-residence for the Seattle Symphony, and he has served for many years as music director of Music From China. His works have been commissioned by the BBC Proms Music Festival the Singapore, Kansas City, Pacific, Honolulu, and Bavarian Radio Symphonies the Brooklyn and Tokyo Philharmonics and the Kronos and Shanghai string quartets, among others. A graduate of Columbia University, he is currently a visiting professor of composition at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in music, Zhou Long graduated from Beijing's Central Conservatory and was composer-in-residence at the China Broadcasting Symphony in the early 1980s. While the first theme returns, the erhu plays intensive drumbeats, and eventually the music reaches a concluding climax.
The second episode combines the two themes together on the erhu and the cello. The first episode is formed by a lyrical melody flowing on top of the cello's harmonic glissando arpeggios.
DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT CHORDS FREE
The piece opens with a strong introduction, imitating the drum beating in a free tempo the erhu imitates rhythmic drumbeats with strong pizzicato chords. At the request of erhu master Xu Ke, Taiping Gu is the revision for erhu and cello. While playing the drum, the performer dances in rhythmic patterns.įirst composed in 1983 as Taiping Drum for violin and piano, I have drawn on pentatonic folk tune material found in a kind of duo singing-and-dancing form popularized in northeastern China. Originally used by shamans in hunting and sacrificial rites, taiping gu became the name of a popular form of song and dance among the Han people, as well as the Mongolian and Man ethnic groups today. Capo on 3rd.Taiping Gu is named for a frame drum (also called dan gu) that originated in northeastern China during the Tang dynasty (618–907).