Concert Program

Erhu, the Chinese fiddle, possesses multifaceted personalities. Three Personalities is written for Amely Zhou Jiali for the lyricism and superb skills of her erhu playing. It draws inspiration from her three favorite erhu personalities and techniques – the lyrical nature of the erhu, ricochet and harmonics.

The lyricism displayed by the erhu resembles that of the poignancy of the human voice.  There are three techniques that characterize the lyricism in the first movement. There are the pitch bend, wide vibrato and legato bowing. The movement title “Introduction” is used in many Chinese traditional repertoire to set the tone for the music.

The ricochet technique on the erhu is commonly used to imitate horse galloping in traditional erhu repertoire. In this movement, the erhu and dizi take turn to “gallop” and the other soars through the ricochet gestures with a melody.

The third movement highlights the harmonic glissandos on both the D string and A string of the erhu. This movement takes on an improvisatory nature with the erhu gliding through the harmonic series while the dizi improvises using the notes on the harmonic series in a sporadic nature.

Gabe Roethle, violin
Hong-Da Chin, dizi

 Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon is based on the idea of one gesture that is immediately responded by another gesture in a variety of forms. The gestures include traditional dizi techniques such as the glissandos (滑⾳) and abrupt grace notes (剁⾳); and the violin techniques such as the pizzicatos, pitch bends and harmonics. These techniques are interchangable among the dizi and the violin adding another layer to the chasing idea.

The title derives from a Chinese orchestra standard repertoire with the same title in Chinese – 彩云追⽉. While this new work does not resemble the Chinese classic stylistically, it captures the essence of what it portrays.

Di Zhang, yangqin
Amely Zhou, erhu

When Stolen Time Becomes Fixed Time is a reimagination of the gamelan music that I I grew up exposing to in Malaysia. The work is influenced by the gamelan slendro scale, texture and melodic embellishments.

The work is originally written for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet and oboe. This version is an adaptation for erhu, yangqin and dizi.

Minjung Kim, piano
Amely Zhou, erhu
Hong-Da Chin, dizi

Reflecting on the life of his late Aunt Norma, Chan’s three-movement work identifies universal commonalities across three distinct stages of her journey.

Movement I: Soon after World War II, my Aunt Norma, who was the sixth child of the seven living children, works at an office doing secretary work in Hong Kong. One of her best friends decided to apply to a nursing school in Australia and asked Norma to do the same. While she does not know much about nursing, she inevitably agreed upon her friend’s insistence. To her surprise, both were accepted and just like that, she attended nursing school and became a nurse. Fate has a curious way of determining one’s destiny.

Movement II: Upon her graduation from nursing school, she returned to Hong Kong expecting to marry her fiancé. However, the man she loved had found someone else, and their marriage was off. Broken hearted, she went to London, England, practiced her new profession in a hospital. Amidst of her disappointment in her love life, she found happiness working in a hospital where people there call her “sister” — a name for a nurse or a nun.

Movement III: From then on, she devoted herself to helping patients and served in various capacities in the church. After travelling around the world, including holy cities like Rome and Bethlehem, she settled in Vancouver, Canada, serving the poor and the needy until retirement. She found her calling as a devoted Catholic, being close to the church is her ultimate joy in life.

Matthew Poon, conductor
Yang Wei*, pipa
Amely Zhou, erhu
Kacee Dugas, cello
Greg Beyer*, percussion
Hong-Da Chin, dizi/bawu

 Almost Identical draws inspiration from the heterophonic texture and interlocking style that are used in many folk music in the world including Chinese, Indian, and gamelan music. This work unfolds in two attacca movements that are connected by an interlude. The first movement “Heterophonic Dialogues” features heterophonic texture with each musical instrument presenting a similar melodic idea that is abundantly embellished by grace notes, trills, timbral change, and other melodic ornamentations. The “Interlude” highlights a free reed Chinese wind instrument–bawu–that is believed to originate from southwest China. The last movement “Interlocked Dance” highlights the interlocking style. Each musical instrument displays a stylistically and metrically distinct melody that forms a web of melodic ideas when played simultaneously.

* denotes NIU faculty