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Wednesday 13 April 2011 7:30pm Loke Yew Hall The University of Hong Kong
Supported by the Music and Fine Arts Endowment Fund Assisted by the Music Society A.A.H.K.U.S.U
PROGRAMME
The Discourse Upon Warlords
Izumi Nikaido, flute Timothy Sun, alto saxophone William Lane, viola Stephen Bin, cello Linda Yim, piano Vicky Shin, percussion Yip Ho Kwen Austin, conductor
Sacred Drone
Izumi Nikaido, flute Stephen Bin, cello Linda Yim, piano
Galactic Gala
Linda Yim, piano Yeung Kwun-man Almond, drum set HKU Balinese Gamelan Orchestra Kwok Ka-ho Terrence, conductor ~ Intermission ~
Gion Shoja
Olivier Nowak, flute
The 5 Steps
I Wood II Fire III Earth IV Metal V Water Olivier Nowak, flute William Lane, violin Timothy Sun, saxophone Choreographer: Daniel Yeung Dancers: Bruce Liu, Alice Ma, Alan Wong, Chloe Wong, Daniel Yeung
Nirmali Fenn
Programme Notes
The Discourse Upon Warlords
flute, alto saxophone, viola, cello, piano, percussion world premiere In the final years of the Han Dynasty (184-220 AD), shortly before settling down to the Three Kingdoms period, China was riven by chaotic infighting between warlords. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ( ), a historical novel written by Luo Guan-zhong () in the Ming Dynasty, was based on events that happened during this period. Regarded as one of the Four Great Classical Novels () in Chinese literature, the complexity of the plot and detailed depictions of characters led this 120-chapter novel to be regarded as arguably one of the most famous historical novels in Chinese history. The Discourse Upon Warlords was inspired by an excerpt in chapter twelve that depicts a conversation between the two protagonists, Cao Cao () and Liu Bei (). The conversation revolved around other uprising powers, and Caos continuous threats against Liu in the conversation marked a turning point in the novel, as Liu rebelled against Cao immediately afterwards. Yip Ho Kwen Austin, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a high distinction in general scholarship, is currently working on his doctorate at The University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Dr. Joshua Chan. His works incorporate sounds and instruments (both acoustic and electronic) that originate from ethnic neighborhoods in China, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Yips works have been performed by both internationally and locally renowned ensembles and performers, such as the Ensemble Modern, Bang on a Can, Vox Humana, Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra, Macau Youth Symphony Orchestra, HKU Balinese Gamelan, Sregnis Singers, LArt du Bois, Ensemble Nostri Temporis, The Hong Kong Karemata, The Cake S Ensemble, and violinist Yao Jue. Yips works have recently been performed in ISCM 2010 (Sydney), ACL 2010 (Tokyo), Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival 2010, Shanghai Conservatory of Music New Music Week 2010, WOCMAT 2010, and Musicarama 2009, 2010 (Hong Kong). In addition, Yip attended the 45th International Summer Courses for New Music at Darmstadt, Germany (2010), the 1st Asian Art & Cultural Workshop (Korea, 2010), 4th UNESCO Asian Youth Conference (Korea, 2010), and was invited to be a speaker at the Asia Culture Forum 2010 (Korea). ******
Sacred Drone
flute, cello, piano world premiere The piece is inspired by a religious horror movie.
Tse Tai Shun, currently an MPhil student at The University of Hong Kong, is studying composition with Dr. Chan Hing-yan. His compositions have been performed in various venues, such as the Hong Kong Baptist University and The University of Hong Kong. In 2006, his multi-media composition Interrupted, composed in collaboration with Daniel Lo, was performed by renowned violinist Yao Jue at HKU. In 2010, Tse participated in the 45th International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany, where he attended masterclasses by contemporary composers such as Vladimir Tarnopoisky, Georges Aperghis, and Lisa Lim.
Galactic Gala
Piano, drum set, gamelan gong kebyar world premiere
Galactic Gala was written for piano, drum set, and gamelan gong kebyar, three vastly different instruments that display similar percussive features. When I was first introduced to gamelan gong kebyar (a Balinese ensemble consisting chiefly of percussion instruments) during an undergraduate music course, I was struck by its exuberant, spellbinding musical style. Galactic Gala serves as an exploration of the gamelan genre, and in particular of the ways to integrate the ensemble with other instruments. The piano, a solo instrument of European origin, was chosen for the purpose of this composition. The inclusion of the contemporary drum set as a third instrument poses further challenges, as there are very few trio pieces written for the gamelan gong kebyar. Such an instrumental collection offers an excellent opportunity to explore the possibilities of fusing east and west, group and individual, tonality and atonality, as well as age and modernity in the composition. This piece celebrates the wonder and splendor of the magnificently huge systems of stars sprinkled throughout the infinite vastness of space. The idiomatic technique of kotekan (interlocking figures) is used in the gamelan part to create an explosive effect, culminating in the climax of the music. Lo Ting-cheung Daniel is currently an MPhil (Music Composition) candidate under the supervision of Dr. Chan Hing-yan at The University of Hong Kong, where he received his BA (Music) degree with first class honours. Lo has received formal instruction for piano and percussion since childhood, and has been the recipient of various awards and scholarships. One of his undergraduate works Interrupted (cocomposed with Tse Tai Shun) was performed in the New Violin Dimension: A Multimedia Concert with Yao Jue in April 2009. Lo was a winner at the New Generation 2010 awards organized by the Hong Kong Composers Guild. Last summer, Lo was invited to the first annual International Antonn Dvok Composition Competition at Prague on the merit of his work Galactic Gala, winning the third prize and a special prize for the best chamber music. His recent work Sojourners Song for pipa, flute, contrabass, piano, and two percussion was awarded first place in the student division in the 2010-2011 Migratory Journeys International Composition Competition. It will be premiered at the Migratory Journeys World Premiere Concerts in early 2012. ******
Gion Shoja
flute solo Hong Kong premiere
Gion Shoja is a reference from the opening stanza of a canon of Japanese literature known as The Tale of Heike, which is set in the 12th century. An English translation of that fragment is as follows: The sound of the Gionshoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; The color of the Sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; The mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind. In this composition, one melody represents the human ego, while the second represents a message from Buddha. These two melodies are later intertwined. Yoko Hamabe Wylegala's music reflects her diverse living experiences. In addition to her early musical education and classical environment while growing up in Tokyo, she later obtained a BA in law and MA in East Asian Studies/Oriental philosophy. Wylegala's music, which includes solo, ensemble, choral and orchestral pieces, has been performed in Moscow (Moscow Symphony Orchestra), Washington DC,
Mexico City, Lima, Havana, Dresden, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Berlin (Orchester Berliner Musikfreunde, HfM, Hanns Eisler). Her music is international in its inspiration too. Cuban ballet dancer, Narciso Medina, commissioned Wylegala for his dance company, while Irish saxophonist Antonio Cafolla commissioned orchestral and tenor saxophone music from her for the 2008 season, and Italian painter Alessandro Chiodo used her music for his 2006 exhibition in Berlin, which was sponsored by Werkstatt der Kulturen. German poet, Mathias Meuller-Lentrodt used her music for his Haiku poem exhibition at Galerie Bremer in Berlin (2007) and the Japan-German Center in Berlin sponsored Wylegalas concert in October 2007. In May 2010, Wylegala wrote a piece for orchestra called Voyage, which was commissioned by the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra for its July 2010 China Tour. Currently, she is a PhD (Music Composition) candidate at The University of Hong Kong under the supervision of Dr. Hing-yan Chan. Wylegala received an award from ASCAPs Concert Division in 2007-08, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010 (ASCAP, NYC, NY), and her orchestra piece Iluminacion de la Rana received a prize for the Best Classical Contemporary Song 2009 (JPF Music Award 2009, Nashville TN).
Most of time, audience perception of meaning in a musical work, if there is such a thing, is based on stereotypes carved in the collective unconsciousness. The most common being that sounds based on major harmonies represent happy feelings, while minor harmonies represent sad feelings. With the advent of chromatic saturation and atonal music, feelings related to fear, madness, and the grotesque were added to the range of unconscious perceptions of musical meaning. Reflected Marionettes No. 1 portrays short episodes that take place in an imaginary world of marionettes. In this personal speculation, the stereotyped grotesqueness becomes sublime and the values are inverted in a world reflected through a marionettes mirror. Joo Marcos Mascarenhas has a Bachelor of Music in jazz composition from Berklee College of Music (USA) and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Missouri-Columbia (USA) and has embarked on a PhD in Music Composition under the supervision of Dr. Chan Hing-yan at The University of Hong Kong. In addition to teaching and studying, he has worked as a performer, composer, arranger, and music director in France, USA, Brazil, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Suriname, and Argentina. His authentic Brazilian Trio opened the 2008 Hong Kong International Jazz Festival. His second trio, Latino Jazz, has performed regularly at Peel Fresco Music Lounge and also performed for Radio Television of Hong Kong and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in June 2009. Mascarenhas was also the music director and arranger for the opening night of The University of Hong Kong's Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities in July 2009, where works from David Henry Hwang, the Chinese-American playwright, were performed. Mascarenhas also taught the course Composing and Arranging Popular Music at the Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities in 2009 and 2010. His multimedia work, Into the Music Multimedia tude no. 1 was awarded the Rayson Huang Scholarship in Music 2009-2010 at The University of Hong Kong.
The 5 Steps
flute, violin, saxophone, five dancers world premiere I II III IV V Wood Fire Earth Metal Water
Nirmali Fenn
The 5 Steps theatricalises the 5 elements of Taoism - Wood (), Fire (), Earth (), Metal (), and Water (). Each element is part of a holistic system that is assessed in terms of what it does rather than what it looks like. For instance, wood symbolizes birth, while earth represents its inversion, a child giving birth to its mother. The most important message of the piece lies in the Water movement, the last movement of the piece. At this point, the two activities that represent the inner and outer dynamics of the piece, the music and the dance, merge into one. The piece becomes highly ritualistic as musicians sacrifice their instruments on top of the dancers bodies. Each of these bodies have been piled on top of each other to mirror the coming together again of all elements to create an original whole. This is a generative process, out of which something new might arise. But after the sacrifice of the instruments, there can, for the moment, only be an expectant but absolute silence. Dance and music are physically bound as one. This creates the moment when there is both extreme introversion and the renewal of life. Beginning her life in an orphanage in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, Nirmali Fenn was raised and educated in Australia, gaining highest honours in musical composition from the Universities of New South Wales and Melbourne. A Clarendon Scholarship and an Overseas Research Students Award enabled her to complete a doctorate at Oxford University. After receiving Second Prize at the 26th Concorso Internazionale di Composizione in Turin in 2008, she is becoming increasingly known on the international stage, and has taken up appointments as Composer in Residence for the Saxophone Habanera Festival in Poitiers, France, and the Lake District Summer Music Festival, UK. Her compositions have impressed many of the worlds leading ensembles specializing in contemporary music, including the Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Cairn, Ensemble Linea, Kuss Quartet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tin Alley String Quartet, Sounds Underground and Endymion Ensemble. She is currently a scholar at the Society of Scholars in the Humanities, The University of Hong Kong. Fenn, whose artistic vision is constantly expanding, sees music wholly as an expression of the observation of social interactions, and her compositions often deal with the concept of unifying divisions.
Musicians
William Lane - Violin/Viola (Artistic Director, HKNME) William Lane has performed as a soloist, orchestral player, and chamber musician all over Australasia, Asia, Europe, and North America. Recipient of a number of large scholarships and prize-winner at various international competitions, he studied under Jan Sedivka (Australia), Bruno Giuranna (Italy), and Garth Knox (France), as well as in Germany at the International Ensemble Modern Akademie. He has been the recipient of a number of awards and scholarships, including the Alcorso Scholarship and an Asialink Fellowship. Lane was a violist in the Hong Kong Philharmonic (2008-2010), principal viola of Ensemble Resonanz (Hamburg, 2007-2008), and worked on a freelance basis with Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt, 2006-2007) and SMASH Ensemble (Salamanca, Spain, 2008). As an orchestral musician, he has worked as principal viola with the Australian Youth Orchestra and casual player with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. As a new music advocate, Lane is Artistic Director of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, giving regular concerts in Hong Kong, Macau, Australia, Guangzhou, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. He has also appeared as a guest lecturer and performer at University College Cork (Ireland), University of Newcastle (UK), Australian Institute of Music (Sydney), ORKA-M (India), Princeton University (USA), and Kings College (London). Izumi Nikaido - Flute Izumi Nikaido was born in Kagoshima City, Japan. She started to play the piano when she was three years old and taught herself the piccolo when she was eleven. She switched to the flute a year later, after her family moved to Tokyo. After early studies at the Yamaha Music School, she studied at Kagoshima Junior College, the Royal Academy of Music, HKAPA, and LEcole Normale Musique de Paris. Nikaido was assistant principal flute of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra (2000-2006) and acting flute/piccolo of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta (2006-2008). Since the summer of 2008, she has been a member of Duo Fluxion (flute and bassoon duo), which debuted in Hong Kong and Japan in 2009. As a teacher, she has taught at the HKAPA Junior School and in other schools around Hong Kong. Olivier Nowak - Flute Olivier Nowak entered the Orchestra of the French National Police in September 2003 as solo flute. He also played as solo flute during the entire 2005-2006 season in the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy in France. Since 2008, he has been assistant principal flute of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a member of the Hong Kong chamber ensemble, Trio de TST, and has also performed with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Timothy Sun - Saxophone Macau-born Timothy Sun is a freelance saxophonist and one of the most sought-after artists in Hong Kong and Macau. Sun began his musical career as a violinist at the age of seven. He began the saxophone at the age of thirteen and in the same year became a student of Mr. Chong Lok Cham at the Macau Conservatory. In 1997, he went to England to continue his studies at the Ellen Wilkinson High School of Art, where he studied saxophone and clarinet with George Galway. In 2001, he became the first Chinese saxophone and clarinet student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with full sponsorship from the Department for Education and Employment. During that period, his principal teachers were worldrenowned saxophonists John Harle and Christian Forshaw. He also worked with clarinetist Julian Farrell and flutist Glen Martin. After completing a Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree, Sun received his Masters degree with distinction under a school scholarship in 2006. Suns student recitals included performances at St. Martin in the Fields, Wigmore Hall, Southwark Cathedral, and Barbican Hall, as well as broadcasts on BBC Radio.
Sun has a special interest in contemporary music and has worked with composers all over the world. Sun also contributes to music education, and has been a saxophone and flute teacher at the Macau Conservatory since 2008. In 2009, he set up the first saxophone ensemble in Macau. The ensemble was invited to perform at the Macao Arts Festival and Macau Band Fair, and both performances received enthusiastic reviews. Looking ahead, Sun will perform as a soloist with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble in 2011- 2012. Stephen Bin - Cello Guest cellist with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble for this concert, Bin Chih Heng Stephen was born and educated in Hong Kong. Since 2009, he has been a regular player with the Hong Kong String Orchestra. He has also performed with the Hong Kong Strings, Hong Kong Oratorio Society, and the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. In February/March 2011, he toured with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble to Cambodia and Taiwan. Linda Yim - Piano Linda Yim is a graduate of the Baptist University Music and Fine Arts Department, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Royal College of Music in London, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, majoring in piano performance and ensemble. Yim is experienced in different performing fields, including solo, accompanying, and chamber music. She is currently an instrumental instructor at HK Baptist University and the Hong Kong Institute of Education, a freelance pianist with the HK Philharmonic Orchestra and HK Sinfonietta, and a member of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Vicky Shin - Percussion Highly praised for his remarkable rhythm by La Presse Montreal, conductor/percussionist Vicky Shin has worked with ensembles throughout Asia, North America, and Europe. Shin studied at the Schullich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his studies, he was the first undergraduate student to be invited to conduct the McGill Wind Symphony and the McGill Wind Orchestra. He has also conducted the Beethoven Orchestra and the Percussion Ensemble at McGill. While in Montreal, he founded Ensemble 514, a chamber orchestra focusing on performing music by living composers. Shin was also active in the operatic pit when he was the music director of the McGill Savoy Society, performing fully staged performances of Gilbert and Sullivan works. Shins principal conducting teachers were Alain Cazes and Alexis Hauser, and he also attended rehearsals and masterclasses by Maestros Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Kent Nagano. Shin is currently the assistant conductor of the Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia Society. He also performs with the Orchestra Macao and the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Shin was invited to participate in the First International Competition for Wind Conductors in France in 2010, and was named the first conducting fellow for soundSCAPE in Italy for the summer of 2011. Yeung Kwun-man Almond - Drum set A professional drummer for over 10 years, having studied under the guidance of the renowned drummers Simon Chui, Anthony Fernandes and Andrew Gander, Yeung Kwun-man Almond has achieved an enviable reputation in the local music industry. Yeung has undertaken engagements at different major jazz venues in town and is considered one of the most talented local drummers. During his drumming career, Yeung has performed with numerous famous musicians such as Ted Lo, Yin Ng, Tsang Tak Hong, Tommy Ho and Wilson Lam.
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