Winter Into Spring
for pipa and Chinese plucked-string ensemble (2013; 17 min.)
My musical collaborations with pipa virtuoso Yang Wei began when I joined him and cellist Mike Block onstage to play an improvisation during their performance at my university. We enjoyed our musical chemistry, and soon thereafter I composed a solo pipa work for Yang Wei, Color Garden. He was then kind enough to suggest that I write something for him to perform as a soloist with the Taipei Liuqin Ensemble, an opportunity that delighted me. In recent years I have composed a number of pieces for traditional Chinese instruments, and Yang Wei’s invitation was for the most ambitious such work I would compose so far, and the first to feature a solo instrument in a concerto-like setting.
In February 2013, during a sabbatical leave from my university, I spent four weeks at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in the western American state of Wyoming; Brush Creek’s residency program provides artists of all kinds with uninterrupted time to pursue a creative project. I arrived ready to begin work on this composition, in which I had planned to depict the awakening and growth of plants in the spring. However, as I was walking back on a snowy road from my composing studio on the first night, I was deeply moved by the crystalline beauty of the winter stars, shining in a deep black sky far from city lights. I resolved then to write music about the winter also- its beauty as well as its harshness- and about the magical transition from winter into spring. My original idea, the plants’ awakening, now appears as the final movement.
1. Piercing Winter Stars * Performed by Yang Wei, pipa, and the Taipei Liuqin Ensemble, Catherine Cheng, director, with Jason Chìh-Hsuān Liú, conductor
2-3. Hard Freeze/ Snowfall * Performed by Yang Wei, pipa, and the Taipei Liuqin Ensemble, Catherine Cheng, director, with Jason Chìh-Hsuān Liú, conductor
4-5. Melting Ice, Warm Winds / Pushing Upward: The Force of Life * Performed by Yang Wei, pipa, and the Taipei Liuqin Ensemble, Catherine Cheng, director, with Jason Chìh-Hsuān Liú, conductor