CHEN YI
CHEN YI
Recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001-04),
Chen Yi* has served as the
Lorena Searcey Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished
Professor in Music Composition at the Conservatory of the
University of Missouri-Kansas City since 1998. Prior to her
current appointment, Chen served on the composition faculty
of Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore (1996-98) and as Composer-in-Residence with the
Women’s Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative
Arts Center in San Francisco (1993-96), supported by Meet
The Composer’s New Residencies Program. She was
elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
2005.
Born April 4, 1953, in Guangzhou, China, into a family
of doctors with a strong interest in classical music, Chen
Yi started studying violin and piano at age three with
Zheng Rihua and Li Suxin, and music theory with Zheng
Zhong. Dr. Chen has received music degrees from the Beijing
Central Conservatory (BA and MA) and Columbia University in
the City of New York (DMA). Dr. Chen’s major
composition teachers included Professors Chou Wen-chung,
Mario Davidovsky, Wu Zu-qiang and Alexander Goehr.
Chen Yi was the first woman to receive a master’s
degree in composition in China in June, 1986, when she
presented a full evening concert of her orchestral works in
Beijing. She was also the first woman to present a full
evening multimedia orchestral concert in the US (for
orchestra, choir, Chinese traditional instrumental
soloists, dancers, and image projection – the
Chinese Myths Cantata), in May, 1996, with
three sold out performances in San Francisco. In 2001, she
was invited by the China National Symphony Orchestra and
Chorus to give an evening-length concert of her orchestral
and choral works in Beijing. On May 29, 2008, there is
another evening concert of her more recent orchestral works
presented by the China National Symphony Orchestra in
Beijing. By combining Chinese and Western traditions, Chen
Yi transcends cultural and musical boundaries, and serves
as an ambassador for the arts, creating music that reaches
a wide range of audiences and inspires people of different
cultural backgrounds.
Dr. Chen has received fellowships from the Guggenheim
Foundation (1996) and the National Endowment for the Arts
(1994), as well as the Lieberson Award from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters (1996). Other honors include
first prize in the Chinese National Composition Competition
(1985), the Lili Boulanger Award from the National Women
Composers Resource Center (1993), New York
University’s Sorel Medal (1996), the CalArts/Alpert
Award (1997), a Grammy Award (1999), the University of
Texas Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (1999), the
Adventurous Programming and Concert Music awards from ASCAP
(1999 and 2001, respectively), the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center’s Elise Stoeger Award (2002), the
Edgar Snow Memorial Fund’s Friendship Ambassador
Award (2002), an honorary doctorate from Lawrence
University (2002), and the Kauffman Award in
Artistry/Scholarship from the UMKC Conservatory (2006).
Dr. Chen has received major commissions from the
Koussevitzky, Fromm, Ford, Rockefeller, and Roche
foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber
Music America, Meet The Composer, the Creative Work Fund,
the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Mary Cary Trust,
NYSCA, Carnegie Hall, New Heritage Music Foundation,
Friends of Dresden Music Foundation, the American Guild of
Organists, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the
Eastman School, Ithaca College, Bradley University, Miami
University, Chorus America, and the 6th World Symposium on
Choral Music. Commissioning ensembles and soloists include
the Lucerne Music Festival for the Cleveland Orchestra,
Mira Wang along with the Sächsische Staatskapelle
Dresden and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the
Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the BBC Proms Festival for
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, Yo-Yo
Ma and the Pacific Symphony, Raschèr Saxophone
Quartet and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Yehudi
Menuhin, Emanuel Ax, Michala Petri, Evelyn Glennie and the
Singapore Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The
Women’s Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the
Metropolitan Wind Symphony, Philadelphia Classical
Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chamber Music
Society of Minnesota, New Music Consort, San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players, Chanticleer, KITKA, San
Francisco Citywinds, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, Music
From China, the Ying Quartet, the Elements Quartet, the
Shanghai Quartet, the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra, the
HK Chinese Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, Network For New
Music, Opus 21, Chicago a cappella, KC Chorale, Peninsula
Women’s Chorus, and many others. Dr. Chen’s
music is performed worldwide and published by Theodore
Presser Company. Her works have been recorded on the New
Albion (1997), CRI/NewWorld (1999/2007), Teldec (1997, 1999
with Grammy, 2003), Nimbus (1993, 2000), Cala (1995), Avant
(1998), Atma (1999), Hugo (2000), Angel (2001), Bis
(2002-4), Albany (2004-6), Cavalli (2004), Centaur
(2004-5), Quartz (2006), and China Record Corporation
(1986, 1990) labels. Dr. Chen’s most recent CD
releases include recordings of a cello concerto,
Eleanor’s Gift [Troy648], the
Golden Flute concerto [KIC7566], a string
quartet, At the Kansas City Chinese New Year
Concert [QTZ2055], and a third album of orchestral
works titled Momentum [Bis1352].
Premieres from 2007 and 2008 include Three
Bagatelles from China West (2007, for flute and
piano), Looking at the Sea (2007, for
women’s chorus), China West Suite
(2007, for 2 pianos), a song cycle, From the Path of
Beauty, for Chanticleer and the Shanghai Quartet
(2008), The Ancient Chinese Beauty, a
recorder concerto for Michala Petri, (2008), Suite
From China West, a wind ensemble work for the
Metropolitan Wind Symphony (2008), Tunes from My
Home for The Newstead Trio (2008), an orchestral
work Rhyme of Fire (formerly titled Olympic
Fire) for the Royal Philharmonic at the BBC Proms (2008), a
woodwind quintet for Antara Winds, a double concerto for
oboe and sheng and the China National Symphony (2008), and
an overture for the new China National Theatre (2009 New
Year).
Premiere works in 2009 include a chamber orchestra work
for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, a student orchestra
work for Omaha Area Youth Symphony, a marimba solo work for
Nancy Zeltsman, a duet for the Music Teachers’
Association of CA, and new wind ensemble works for both the
MAC Band Director's Association and the NWECG.
Recent years have seen the world premieres of numerous
other works, including the cello concerto, Ballad,
Dance and Fantasy (written for Yo-Yo Ma);
Symphony No. 3; Tu, for
symphonic wind ensemble (adapted from the original version
for full orchestra); Celebration (for
orchestra); Spring in Dresden, a violin
concerto written for Mira Wang; Si Ji (Four
Seasons), a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in
Music, product of the prestigious second Roche Commission
and the subject of a book published by Roche (View the book on Chen Yi’s Si
Ji here!); The Han Figurines
(sextet); Tibetan Tunes (piano trio);
Ji-Dong-Nuo, for solo piano, commissioned by
Carnegie Hall for Emanuel Ax; Ancient Dances
(pipa and percussion duet written for Wu Man); and
The Ancient Beauty, for Chinese instruments
and string orchestra, written for Music From China.
Chen Yi is in high demand as a lecturer at composition
workshops and at concerts of her music throughout the
world. She was appointed by the China Ministry of Education
to the prestigious three-year Changjiang Scholar Visiting
Professorship at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music
in 2006, and presently serves on the boards, advisory
councils or juries of Meet The Composer, Chamber Music
America, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University,
the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, American Composers
Orchestra, the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the
International Alliance of Women in Music, as well as
numerous other music organizations.
For more information, please visit: Chen Yi’s personal website
Current as of August 2008
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Suite
from China West Wind Symphony (2007) -- 10'
Published: #115-40201M (set of parts)
Published: #115-40201F (score)
Commission Information: The Metropolitan Wind Symphony (Lawrence
Isaacson, Music Director) in 2005
Premiere Information: The Metropolitan Wind Symphony on May 18,
2008, conducted by Lewis J. Buckley at the National Heritage
Museum in Lexington, MA
• Reviews
Tu for Symphonic Wind Ensemble
(2003) -- 13'
2 Fl, 1 Picc., 2 Ob, 2 Bsn, 1 C.Bsn, 2 Cl, 1 B.Cl, 4 Sax (SATB),
4 FH, 3Tp (Bb), 2 Trb, Baritones, 1 B.Trb, 1 Tuba , Hp, 4 Perc.,
Cb.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: UMKC Conservatory of Music
Premiere Information: The UMKC Wind Symphony, conducted by Sarah
Mckoin, April 8, 2004, White Hall, UMKC Conservatory, Kansas
City, MO.
Additional Information: Adapted from composer's work Tu for full
orchestra (2002)
UMKC
Fanfare (2009) -- 4'
Picc. 2Fl. 2Ob. E.H. 2Bsn. Cbsn. 2Cl. B.Cl. 3Sax. 3Tpt. 4F.H.
3Tbn. Euph. Tu. Timp. 3Perc.
Commission Information: Commissioned by UMKC Conservatory
Premiere Information: March 27th, 2009, UMKC Conservatory, CBDNA
national conference at the University of
Texas-Austin.
Qin
Tomb of The Middle Kingdom (Original
soundtrack)
Available From Warner Electronic Publishing
Spring
Festival for Middle School Band
Available From www.bandquest.org
...as like a raging fire... for
Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano (2002) -- 10'
Published: #114-41164
Commission Information: Network For New Music, with a grant from
Meet The Composer.
Premiere Information: February 24, 2002, Philadelphia, PA.
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41164P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41164S)
Ancient
Dances Cheering, Longing, and Wondering (on three
poems by Li Bai) (2005) -- 20'
Pipa, Perc.
Published: #114-41293
Commission Information: The Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR,
for pipa player Wu Man
Premiere Information: Wu Man & Robert Schulz, at Walton Arts
Center, AR, Aug. 2005.
Published: #114-41293
Movements:
• Cheering
• Longing
• Wondering
At
the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert for String
Quartet in Three Movements (2002) -- 14'
Published: #114-41198
Commission Information: Eastman School of Music, University of
Rochester for the Ying Quartet
Premiere Information: No Boundaries concert series, Symphony
Space, NY, May 2, 2003
Movements:
• 1. The Talking Fiddle
• 2. Making the Hand-Pulled Noodles
• 3. Blue Dragon Sword Dance
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41198P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41198S)
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41199P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41199S)
China West Suite for Marimba and Piano -- 10'
Published: #114-41346
• Reviews
China West Suite for Two Pianos -- 10'
Published: #110-41777
Premiere Information: 4th June, 2007. Dennis Russell Davies, Maki Namekawa, Pianos, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Germany.
• Recordings
Burning for String Quartet
(2002) -- 3'
Published: #114-41165
Commission Information: Elements String Quartet
Premiere Information: New York, NY, March 23, 2003
• Recordings
• Reviews
Chinese Ancient Dances for
Clarinet and Piano (2004) -- 8'
Cl., Pno.
Published: #114-41262
Commission Information: Co-commissioned by Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center, Virginia Arts Festival, La Jolla SummerFest,
Chamber Music Northwest, supported by Meet The Composer/USA
Commissioning Program
Premiere Information: David Shifrin, Clarinet,
André-Michel Schub, Piano, Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center; at Alice Tully Hall, NYC, May 7, 2004
Movements:
• Hu Xuan Dance
• Ox Tail Dance
Chinese Fables for Erhu, Pipa,
Cello and Percussion (2002) -- 13'
Published: #114-41192
Commission Information: Music From China with a grant from Mary
Cary Charitable Trust
Premiere Information: MFC's 2002 Premiere Works X11 concert at
Merkin Concert Hall, New York, NY, October 5, 2002
Movements:
• 1. The Fox Profited by the Tiger’s
Might
• 2. Master Dong-guo and the Wolf
• 3. The Snipe and the Clam
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41192P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41192S)
Dunhuang
Fantasy Concerto for Organ and Chamber Wind Ensemble
(1999) -- 12'
Org.; 1-1-2-1; 1-1-1-0; Perc.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: American Guild of Organists for Organ
(Kim Marshall) and the Rainier Chamber Winds
Premiere Information: AGO convention in July 4, 2000 in
Seattle
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41231)
Feng for Woodwind Quintet (1998)
-- 12'
Fl. Ob. Cl. Bsn. Hn.
Published: #114-41052
Commission Information: Award from Chamber Music America
(1998/99)
Premiere Information: January 13, 1999. Citywinds, St. John's
Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, CA
Movements:
• Introduction
• Rondo
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41052P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41052S)
Fiddle Suite for Huqin* and
String Quartet or Quintet (1997) -- 16'
Published: #114-40951
Commission Information: Award from Fromm Music Foundation at
Harvard University
Premiere Information: Quartet version: Xu Ke, huqin, and Ciompi
Quartet, Duke University, February 19, 2000. Quintet version: Xu
Ke, huqin, and members of Virginia Symphony, Virginia Waterfront
International Arts Festival, Norfolk, VA, April 13, 1999
Additional Information: *Huqin is the family name of the Chinese
bowing instruments (two-string vertical violins).
Movements:
• Dancing
• Reciting
• Singing
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-40951P)
Full Score - Large (#114-40951S)
Fisherman Song for Violin and
Piano (1980) -- 7'
Published: #114-40950
Premiere Information: Ho Hongying, San Francisco, March 10,
1996
• Recordings
From Old Peking Folklore for Violin and Piano (2009) --
4'
Published: #114-41373
Commission Information: Commissioned by MTAC
Premiere Information: July 5th, 2009, MTAC summer workshop, San
Jose, CA
Han
Figurines, The (2006) -- 5'
Violin, Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone, Double Bass, Piano &
Percussion
Commission Information: Opus 21 and Fontana Chamber Arts
Premiere Information: Opus 21at Kerrytown Concert House in Ann
Arbor, MI on 5/11/06
Happy Rain on a Spring Night for
Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano (2004) -- 12'
Fl., Cl., Vn., Vc., Pn.
Published: #114-41271
Commission Information: Music From Copland House, with public
funds from the Composer’s Commissions program of the New
York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Premiere Information: Music From Copland House, Merkin Hall, New
York, October 18, 2004.
• Recordings
• Reviews
Joy of
Reunion for Oboe, Viola, Cello and Double Bass
Available From Composer
Near Distance (1988) --
10'
Fl.(A.Fl), Cl.(B.Cl), Perc., Pno, Vln., Vcl.
Published: #114-40744
Premiere Information: Chamber Ensemble in Sound and Silence,
Krakow, Poland, January 8, 1989
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-40744P)
Full Score - Large (#114-40744S)
Night Thoughts for Flute, Cello,
and Piano (2004) -- 8'
Fl., Vc., Pn.
Published: #114-41248
Commission Information: Co-commissioned by Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center, Virginia Arts Festival, La Jolla SummerFest,
Chamber Music Northwest, supported by Meet The Composer/USA
Commissioning Program
Premiere Information: April 28, 2004. Deborah Cross, Flute, Keith
Robinson, Cello, André-Michel Schub, Piano, at the
Virginia Arts Festival, Norfolk, VA
• Recordings
Ning Trio for Violin, Cello and
Pipa (2001) -- 15'
Published: #114-41133
Commission Information: Chamber Music Society of Minnesota with a
grant from Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham
Young University, and The Hoeschler Fund of The Saint Paul
Foundation
Premiere Information: May 30, 2001. Young-Nam Kim, Violin, Yo-Yo
Ma, Cello, Wu Man, Pipa. Ordway Center for the Performing Arts,
St. Paul, MN
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41133P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41133S)
Pipa
Rhyme for Pipa and 14 Players
Available From Composer
Qi for Flute, Cello, Piano and
Percussion (1996-97) -- 12'
Published: #114-40901
Commission Information: Award from Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: Los Angeles Philharmonic, March 3, 1997;
New York New Music Consort, March 10, 1997; San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players, March 17, 1997
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-40901P)
Full Score - Large (#114-40901S)
Romance and Dance for Violin and
Piano (1999) -- 9'
Published: #114-41080
Additional Information: Orchestral version available on rental
from Theodore Presser Company
• Recordings
• Reviews
Romance of Hsiao and Ch’in
for Cello and Piano (1998) -- 5'
Published: #114-41081
Additional Information: Orchestral version available on rental
from Theodore Presser Company
Septet for Erhu,
Pipa, Percussion and Saxophone Quartet (2008) -- 14'
Erhu, Pipa, Percussion, Saxophone Quartet
Commission Information: Commissioned by Music From China and
Prism Quartet with a grant from NYSCA
Premiere Information: 27th February, 2009; PRISM Saxophone
Quartet and Music From China. Settlement Music School,
Philadelphia, PA and 28th February at Merkin Concert Hall, New
York.
• Reviews
Shuo for String Quartet
Published: #416-41210Q
Additional Information: Also available for String
Orchestra.
Song in Winter Quartet For
Flute, Zheng, Piano and Percussion
Published: #114-40947
Commission Information: Alea III
Premiere Information: Alea III, Boston University, February 2,
1994
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-40947P)
Full Score - Large (#114-40947S)
Song in Winter Trio for
Harpsichord, Di, Zheng (1993) -- 8'
Published: #114-41103
Commission Information: Pro Musicis
Premiere Information: Joyce Lindorff and Music From China, New
York, NY, March 23, 1994
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41103P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41103S)
Song of the Great Wall for Eight
French Horns (1999) -- 5'
Published: #114-41094
Commission Information: Nancy Cochran-Block of the International
French Horn Society
Premiere Information: 2000, Great Wall, Beijing, China
Additional Information: Arrangement from a song by LIU
Xue-An.
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41094P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41094S)
Sound of The Five for Cello and
String Quartet (1998) -- 16’
Published: #114-41053
Commission Information: Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New
York
Premiere Information: Mimi Hwang and the Ying Quartet, New York,
November 15, 1998
Movements:
• Echoes of the Set Bells
• Flower Drums in Dance
• Lusheng Ensemble
• Romance of Hsiao & Ch’in
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41053P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41053S)
Sparkle Octet (1992) -- 11' 30"
Fl.(Picc.), Cl.(E-flat.), 2Perc., Pno., Vln., Vcl., Cb.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Grant from the Mary Flagler Cary
Charitable Trust
Premiere Information: New Music Consort; Claire Heldrich,
conductor, New York, October 21, 1992
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41156)
Sprout for String Quartet
Published: #114-41200P
• Recordings
Suite
for Cello and Chamber Winds (2004) -- 20'
Cello Solo, 1111, 1110, Perc.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: UMKC Conservatory of Music. Adapted from
composer's four movement work Sound of the Five for cello and
string quartet (1998).
Premiere Information: The UMKC Wind Symphony, cello solo by
Carter Enyeart, conducted by Sarah Mckoin, April 26, 2005, White
Hall, UMKC Conservatory, Kansas City, MO.
Three
Bagatelles from China West (2006) -- 10'
Flute and Piano, or 2 Flutes, or Guanzi and Sheng
Commission Information: Meet The Composer’s Flute Book for
the 21st Century, for Mayra Martin, and dedicated to Gilbert
Kaplan
Premiere Information: by Marya Martin and Colette Valentine at
Weill Recital Hall on 3/29/07, NYC
Additional Information: The version for Guanzi and Sheng was
premiered by Bao Jian and Hu Jianbing, at Beijing Modern at the
Central Conservatory of Music on 5/27/07,
Beijing
Tibetan
Tunes (2007) -- 10'
Violin, Cello and Piano
Commission Information: Barlow Endowment for Music Composition,
for the New Pacific Trio
Premiere Information: by the New Pacific Trio (Igor Veligan, Nina
Flyer, Sonia Leong) at Faye Spanos Concert Hall, University of
the Pacific, Stockton, on 1/27/07, CA
Additional Information: Published: 114-41335
• Recordings
• Reviews
Tunes
from My Home (2007) -- 20'
Violin, Cello and Piano
Commission Information: Pennsylvania Academy of Music, PA for
Newstead Trio
Premiere Information: Newstead Trio (Michael Jamanis, Sara Male
and Xun Pan) at Pennsylvania Academy of Music, Lancaster, PA, on
6/11/08
Additional Information: Published: Full Score (114-41349S)
Set of Parts (114-41349P)
Woodwind Quintet (1987) --
9'
Fl., Ob., Cl., Bsn., Hn.
Published: #114-40745
Premiere Information: The Composers Conference Ensemble; Efrain
Guigui, conductor, Wellesley, MA, August 5, 1987
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-40745P)
Full Score - Large (#114-40745S)
Woodwind
Quintet No. 3 (2008) -- 13'
Fl., Ob., Cl., Bsn., Hn
Commission Information: Eastman School of Music
Premiere Information: by the Antara Winds at the Women in Music
Festival, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, on
9/20/2008
Wu
Yu for Chamber Ensemble (6 Players) (2002) --
14'
Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin, Cello,
Percussion
Published: #114-41166
Commission Information: Boston Musica Viva
Premiere Information: March 15, 2002, in Boston, conducted by
Richard Pittman
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41166P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41166S)
Wu
Yu for Chamber Ensemble (7 Players)
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass
Published: #114-41167
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41167P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41167S)
Xian Shi for Viola, Piano and
Percussion
Published: #114-41162
Available
Separately:
Set of parts
(#114-41162P)
Full Score - Large (#114-41162S)
Yangko (2005) -- 5'
Vn., 2 Perc.
Published: #114-41272
Commission Information: Philadelphia Music Project for Network
for New Music’s dance concert
Premiere Information: by Network for New Music at ArtsBank in
Philadelphia, PA, 3/8&9/05.
Additional Information: adapted from the 2nd movement of Chinese
Folk Dance Suite
• Recordings
• Reviews
Ancient
Beauty, The (2006) -- 10'
Dizi (dbl. Xun), Erhu, Pipa, Zheng; Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Commissioned by the Philadelphia
Classical Symphony and Music From China
Premiere Information: 21st, 23rd April, 2006. Music From China,
Philadelphia Classical Symphony, conducted by Karl Middleman.
Montgomery County Community College, Blue Bell, PA (21st), Holy
Trinity Church, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA
(23rd).
Additional Information: I The Bronze Taotie II The Clay
Figurines
Fiddle
Suite for Huqin and Chinese traditional instrumental
orchestra (1997/2008) -- 16'
Commission Information: Municipal Chinese Traditional
Instrumental Orchestra
Premiere Information: Xu Ke and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra,
conducted by Shao En, on 3/29/08, Taiwan
Additional Information: (adapted from Fiddle Suite
for Huqin and Orchestra)
Overture for Chinese
Traditional Instrumental Orchestra
Commission Information: Hong Kong Chinese Traditional
Instrumental Orchestra in 1989
Available From Composer
Overture
No. 2 for Chinese Traditional Instrumental
Orchestra
Commission Information: Hong Kong Chinese Traditional
Instrumental Orchestra in 1990.
Available From Composer
Suite Quintet for
Pipa, Di, Yangqin, Sanxian, Erhu (3 movements)
Available From Composer
The
Tide for Xun, Yangqin, Pipa, Zheng, Perc, Gaohu,
Erhu
Available From Composer
Xie
Zi for Two Di, Sheng, Liuqin, Zheng, Sanxian
Available From Composer
Ba
Ban for Solo Piano
Published: #110-41760
• Recordings
Duo Ye for Piano Solo (1984) --
6'
Published: #110-40728
Premiere Information: Chen Min, Beijing, 1986
Additional Information: First prize, 4th China National
Composition Competition, China, 1985 Orchestral version available
on rental from Theodore Presser Company
• Recordings
Guessing for Piano (1989) --
5'
Published: #110-40727
Commission Information: Award from Renee B. Fisher Youth Piano
Competition
Premiere Information: Piano Competition, Connecticut, June 3,
1990
Ji-Dong-Nuo (2005) --
5'
Pno.
Published: 110-41767
Commission Information: Carnegie Hall
Premiere Information: Emanuel Ax, at Birmingham Symphony Hall,
Birmingham, UK, November 13, 2005
• Recordings
Monologue (Impressions on The True Story of
Ah Q) for B-flat Clarinet (1993) -- 5'
Published: #114-40948
Commission Information: Inter-Artes
Premiere Information: Inter-Artes, London, April 18,
1993
The Points for Pipa (1991) --
9'
Published: #114-40946
Premiere Information: Wu Man, New York, October 17, 1991
Additional Information: The Chinese title for this work is
"Dian." The work is also known as "The Spirit of
Calligraphy."
• Recordings
• Reviews
Two Chinese Bagatelles for Piano
Solo
Published: #110-40726
Additional Information: For more information, see individual
listings for movements.
Movements:
• Small Beijing Gong (1min.)
• Yu Diao (2min.)
Ancient
Chinese Beauty, The (2008) -- 15'
Recorders and String Orchestra
Commission Information: Danish recorder master Michala
Petri
Premiere Information: Premiere Information: Michala Petri and
string orchestra, conducted by Shen Hao, Beijing,
4/4/08
Ba Yin
(the Eight Sounds) for Saxophone Quartet and String
Orchestra (2001) -- 19'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Stuttgart Kammerorchester and the Rascher
Sax Quartet
Premiere Information: Stuttgart Kammerorchester and the Rascher
Sax Quartet, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor, October 27, 2001,
Stuttgart, Germany
Movements:
• Praying for Rain
• Shifan Gong-and-drum
• Song of the Chu
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41253)
Full Score - Large (#416-41264)
Ballad,
Dance and Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra (2003) --
20'
Solo Cello; 3(dbl. Picc.) 3(E.H.) 3(B.Cl.) 3(Cbsn.) - 4 3 3 1;
Timp. 3Perc. Hp. Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Pacific Symphony, for the Chinese
American Composers Festival
Premiere Information: March 10th, 2004. Yo-Yo Ma, Cello, Pacific
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Carl St. Clair, Santa Ana,
California.
Movements:
• 1. Ballad of the Earth
• 2. Dance on the Silk Road
• 3. Fantasy for the Global Village
• Reviews
Caramoor's Summer for Chamber
Orchestra (2003) -- 13'
2(2dbl.Picc.) 2 2 2 - 2 1 1 0; Timp.(dbl. Small Bell, Tam-tam)
2Perc. Hp. Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: July 27th, 2003. Orchestra of St.
Luke’s, Caramoor International Music Festival, conducted by
Peter Oundjian, Katonah, NY
Premiere Information: July 27, 2003, Orchestra of St. Luke's,
Peter Oundjian, conductor, Caramoor International Music Festival,
Katonah, NY
Celebration for Orchestra (2005) --
5'
2222, 2221, T, 2 Perc. Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Maryland Classic Youth Philharmonic
(Olivia W. Gutoff, Artistic Director and Conductor), to celebrate
the opening of The Music and Arts Education Center at Strathmore,
Rockville, MD.
Premiere Information: MCYP at Strathmore Concert Hall, MD,
3/12/05, Cond. by Ms. Gutoff.
Chinese
Folk Dance Suite for Violin and Orchestra (2000) --
19'
Violin Solo, 2-2-2-2; 4-2-3-0; 3 Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Award from the Koussevitzky
Foundation
Premiere Information: Terrie Baune and the Women's Philharmonic,
Apo Hsu, conductor, March 10, 2001, San Francisco, CA
Movements:
• 1. Lion Dance
• 2. YangKo
• 3. Mugam
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41252)
Full Score - Large (#416-41252L)
Concerto
for Reeds (2008) -- 14'
Solo Oboe, Solo Sheng; 1 1 2 1 - 1 1 1 0; Perc. Str.
Commission Information: Commissioned Swiss Culture Ministry
Premiere Information: October 28th, 2008, China National
Symphony, Beijing Concert Hall, Beijing, China
Duo
Ye for Chamber Orchestra (1985) -- 7'
1-1-2(B-flat, E-flat)-1; 1-0-0-0; Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: Beijing Symphony Orchestra; Lan Shui,
conductor, Beijing, 1986
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41204)
Duo Ye, No.
2 for Full Orchestra (1987) -- 8'
3(Picc.)-3(E.Hn.)-3(B.Cl.)-3(Cbsn.); 4-3-3-1; Tpt., 3 Perc.,
Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Central Philharmonic Orchestra of
China
Premiere Information: Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China;
Zuohuang Chen, conductor, New York, October 11, 1987
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41153)
Eleanor's
Gift For Solo Cello And Orchestra -- 15'
Solo Cello; 2 2 2 2 - 2 2 1 0; 3Perc.(incl.Timp) Hp. Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: 10th December, 1998. Paul Tobias, Cello,
The Women’s Philharmonic, conducted by Apo Hsu, San
Francisco, CA
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Solo Part with Piano
Reduction (#114-41214)
Full Score - Large (#416-41203)
Fiddle
Suite for Huqin and Orchestra (1997) -- 20'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Additional Information: *Huqin is the family name of the Chinese
bowing instruments (two-string vertical
violins).
Fiddle
Suite for Huqin* and String Orchestra (1997) --
16'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: Xu Ke, huqin, and Japan Philharmonic
Symphony Orchestra, Yuzo Toyama, conductor, April 19, 1998,
Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Additional Information: *Huqin is the family name of the Chinese
bowing instruments (two-string vertical violins).
Movements:
• Dancing
• Reciting
• Singing
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41202)
Ge Xu
(Antiphony) (1994) -- 8'
2(Picc.)-2-2-2; 4-2-3-0; Hp., Tpt., 2 Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: The Women's Philharmonic; JoAnn Falletta,
conductor, Berkeley, CA, January 28, 1995
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41205)
Momentum for Orchestra (1998) --
10'
3-3-3-3; 4-3-3-1; Hp., 4Perc., Str
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: The Peabody Conservatory
Premiere Information: Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Teri Murai,
conductor, Lincoln Center debut, New York, May 2, 1999
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41184)
Overture for orchestra (2008) -- 9'
2 2 2 2 - 4 2 3 0; Timp. 3Perc. Str.
Commission Information: Commissioned by Omaha Area Youth
Orchestra for its 50th anniversary celebration
Premiere Information: April 26th 2009, Omaha, NE
Percussion
Concerto (1998) -- 18'
3-3-3-3; 4-3-3-1; 3Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Premiere Information: Singapore Symphony Orchestra, La Shui,
conductor, Evelyn Glennie, percussion, March 8, 1999,
Singapore
Movements:
• Prelude to Water Tune
• Speedy Wind
• The Night Deepens
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Piano Reduction
(#114-41050)
Full Score - Study (#416-41207)
Full Score - Large (#416-41207L)
Piano
Concerto (1992) -- 16'
Pno., 3(Picc.)-3(E.Hn.)-3(B.Cl.)-3(Cbsn.); 4-3-3-1; Tpt., 3Perc.,
Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Brooklyn Philharmonic
Premiere Information: Brooklyn Philharmonic, Dennis Russell
Davies, conductor, Margaret Leng Tan, piano, Brooklyn, NY,
October 14, 1994
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41236)
Prelude
and Fugue (2009) -- 21'
2 2 2 2 - 2 2 0 0; Perc. Pno. Str.
Commission Information: Commissioned by Meet The Composer/League
of American Orhcestras Music Alive! for the St Paul Chamber
Orchestra
Premiere Information: April 30th, 2009, the St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra, St. Paul, MN
• Reviews
Prospect
Overture for full orchestra (2008) -- 9'
3 3(E.H.) 3(B.Cl.) 3(Cbsn.) - 4 3 3 1; Timp. Perc. Str.
Commission Information: Commissioned by China National Center for
the Performing Arts to celebrate 2009 New Year
Premiere Information: December 31st, 2008, China National
Symphony, Beijing, China
Rhyme of
Fire for Orchestra (2008) -- 15'
3(Picc.) 3(E.H.) 3(B.Cl.) 3(Cbsn.) – 4 3(inC) 3(B.Tbn.) 1;
Timp. 4Perc. Str. Perc. I: Xylophone and Glockenspiel Perc. II:
Tom-Tom and Bass Drum Perc. III: Snare Drum, Claves, and Small
Beijing Opera Gong Perc. IV: Suspended Cymbal, Triangle, and
Tam-Tam
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: BBC Proms
Premiere Information: 8th August, 2008. Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, BBC Proms, Royal Albert
Hall, London.
Additional Information: Premiered on the opening day of the
Beijing Olympics, under the title Olympic
Fire
• Reviews
Romance and
Dance for Two Violins and String Orchestra (1998) --
9'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin
Hudson and Wolfgang Kussmaul (violin soli), Dennis Russell
Davies, conductor, December 12, 1998, Stuttgart,
Germany
Movements:
• Dance (adapted from Dancing, the third mvt. of Fiddle
Suite)
• Romance of Hsiao & Ch’in
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41208)
Solo Part (#416-41208P)
Romance
of Hsiao and Ch'in for Two Violins and String
Orchestra (1995) -- 5'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: Shlomo Mintz and Elmar Oliveira w/Orchestra
of St. Luke's, Yehudi Menuhin, conductor, at A Benefit Tribute to
Yehudi Menuhin, Lincoln Center Festival, New York, August 11,
1996
Additional Information: 1st movement of "Romance and Dance"
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41209)
Shuo for String Orchestra (1994) --
8'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: San Jose Chamber Orchestra
Premiere Information: San Jose Chamber Orchestra; Barbara Day
Turner, conductor, San Jose, January 22, 1995
Additional Information: Also available for String Quartet.
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41210)
Si Ji
(Four Seasons) for Orchestra (2005) -- 15'
4(Picc.) 4(E.H.) 4(B.Cl.) 4(Cbsn.) - 4 3 3(B.Tbn.) 1;
Timp.(d.Perc.) 4Perc. Hp. Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Roche, Lucerne Music Festival, Carnegie
Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra
Premiere Information: The Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Most,
conductor; Aug. 26, 2005 at Lucerne Music Festival, Switzerland;
Oct. 13, 2005 at Severance Hall, Cleveland, OH; Oct. 17, 2005 at
Carnegie Hall, NY.
Additional Information: View the Roche Commission's book on Si Ji
• Reviews
Spring
in Dresden for Violin and Orchestra (2005) --
20'
2222, 4231, Hp, 3 Perc. Solo Vn, Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Saxon State Orchestra Dresden and The New
York Philharmonic, supported by Friends of Dresden Music
Foundation.
Premiere Information: Mira Zheng-rong Wang, violin solist, Ivan
Fischer, conductor, Oct. 9, 2005, to celebrate the reopen of
Frauenkirche (the Lady's Church) at the Semperoper, Dresden,
Germany.
Sprout for String Orchestra (1986) --
7'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China;
Lan Shui, conductor, Beijing, May 31, 1986
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41152)
Symphony No.
2 (1993) -- 18'
3-3(E.Hn.)-3(B.Cl.)-3(Cbsn.); 4-3-3-1; Hp., Tpt., 3Perc.,
Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Women's Philharmonic
Premiere Information: Women's Philharmonic; JoAnn Falletta,
conductor, San Francisco, January 29, 1994
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41157)
Symphony
No. 3 (2003) -- 20'
3(Picc.) 3(E.H.) 3(B.Cl.) 3(Cbsn.) - 4 3 3 1: Timp. 3Perc. Hp.
Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Seattle Symphony, for its centennial
season celebration, supported by Wah & May Lui of
Seattle
Premiere Information: Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz,
conductor; March 18, 2004; Seattle, WA
Movements:
• 1. The Dragon Culture
• 2. The Melting Pot
• 3. Dreaming
• Reviews
The Golden
Flute Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (1997) --
15'
2-2-2-2; 4-2-3-0; Hp., Tpt., 2Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts, USA
Premiere Information: Donna Orbovich and the Duluth Superior
Symphony Orchestra, MN, Yong-yan Hu, Conductor, November 8,
1997
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Solo Part
(#114-40949)
Full Score - Study (#416-41206)
The
Linear (1994) -- 15'
2(Picc.)-2-2-2; 4-3-3-1; Hp., Tpt., 4 Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Oakland Youth Orchestra
Premiere Information: Oakland Youth Orchestra; Wes Kenney,
conductor, Oakland, CA, June 3, 1995
Tu for Orchestra (2002) --
13'
3(Picc.)-3(E.Hn.)-3(B.Cl.)-3(Cbsn.); 4-3-3-1; Hp., Tp., 3Perc.,
Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: The Women’s Philharmonic and the
American Composers Orchestra with a grant provided by NEA in
2000.
Premiere Information: The Women’s Philharmonic, “The
American Women Masters Gala Concert”, conducted by Anne
Manson, March 7. 2004, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, CA.
Additional Information: Also arranged for symphonic wind
ensemble.
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Study
(#416-41269)
Xian
Shi Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1983) --
14'
Vla.; 2(Picc)-2-2-2; 4-3-2-0; Tpt., 2Perc., Str.
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Premiere Information: China Film Studio Symphony; Yao Guanrong,
conductor, Beijing, 1983
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41211)
Solo Part (#416-41211P)
A
Horseherd's Mountain Song for Mixed Chorus, a cap.
(2003) -- 3'
Published: #312-41832
A Set of
Chinese Folk Songs for Children's SA(T) Chorus and
Strings -- 25'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: Aptos & Jordan Middle Schools, Palo
Alto, Albany & Lick-Wilmerding High Schools, San Francisco
Bay area, May, 1994
Movements:
• Awariguli
• Diu Diu Deng
• Fengyan Song
• Guessing
• Jasmine Flower
• Mayila
• Mountain Song and Dancing Tune
• Riding On a Mule
• The Flowing Stream
• Thinking of My Darling
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#312-41682R)
A
Set of Chinese Folk Songs for Men's Choir (TTBB) a
cappella (1994) -- 17'
Published: #312-41682
Commission Information: Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: Chanticleer, San Francisco, April 24,
1994
Additional Information: 10 copies.
Movements:
• Awariguli
• Diu Diu Deng
• Fengyan Song
• Guessing
• Jasmine Flower
• Mayila
• Mountain Song and Dancing Tune
• Riding On a Mule
• The Flowing Stream
• Thinking of My Darling
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#312-41682S)
Movements:
• Fengyan Song
• Guessing
• The Flowing Stream
• Thinking of My Darling
Movements:
• Awariguli
• Jasmine Flower
• Mayila
• Riding On a Mule
Movements:
• Diu Diu Deng
• Mountain Song and Dancing Tune
A
Single Bamboo Can Easily Bend for Mixed Chorus, a
cappella (2003) -- 3'
Published: #312-41833
Arirang Korean folk song
arrangement (1994) -- 3'
Published: #312-41747
Premiere Information: Chanticleer, Asian tour,
1995-96
As
In A Dream Two Songs for Soprano, Pipa and Zheng
(1988) -- 7'
Published: #111-40185
Premiere Information: October 9, 1994. Music From China, Merkin
Concert Hall at the Abraham Goodman House, new York.
• Recordings
As
in a Dream Two Songs for Soprano, Violin, and Cello
(1988) -- 7'
Published: #111-40141
Commission Information: Rao Lan, Soprano and Inoue Chamber
Ensemble
Premiere Information: Inoue Chamber Ensemble, New York, October
17, 1988
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#111-40141S)
Bright Moonlight (2000) --
5'
Mz., Pn.
Published: #111-40190
Commission Information: New York Festival of Song, Meet The
Composer and ASCAP
Premiere Information: Theodora Hanslowe and Michael Barrett, at
Kaye Playhouse at Hunter , New York, NY, March 22,
2001
Capriccio for Mixed Choir, Organ
and Solo Percussion (2001) -- 4'
Published: #312-41813
Premiere Information: March 2, 2002, Evelyn Glennie and the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Craig Jessop, conductor, at the Olympic
Arts Festival to celebrate the Paralympic Games, Salt Lake City,
UT
Additional Information: Adapted from "KC Capriccio"
Available
Separately:
Solo Part
(#312-41813P)
Chinese Mountain Songs for
Women's Choir (2001) -- 10'
Published: #312-41809
Commission Information: Vocal ensemble Kitka with a grant from
NEA and Rockefeller Foundation
Premiere Information: June 17, 2001, San Francisco, CA
Movements:
• A Ma Lei A Ho
• Ga Da Mei Lin
• Gathering in the Naked Oats
• Mt. Wuzhi
• When Will the Scholartree Blossom?
Chinese Myths
Cantata for Male Choir and Orchestra (1996) --
34'
12 singers; 2-2-2-2; 4-2-3-0; 4Pno., Str., 4 Chinese
Instruments
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: Chanticleer, The Women's Philharmonic;
JoAnn Falletta, conductor, San Francisco, June 14,
1996
Movements:
• Nu Wa Creates Human Beings
• Pan Gu Creates Heaven and Earth
• Weaving Maid and Cowherd
• Recordings
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#412-41078)
Chinese Poems for Children's
Chorus in Six Levels (1999) -- 9'
Published: #312-41783
Commission Information: San Francisco Girls Chorus
Premiere Information: May 24, 1999, Davies Symphony Hall, San
Francisco, Sharon Paul, conductor
• Recordings
• Reviews
Available
Separately:
Errata Sheet
(#312-41783E)
From the
Path of Beauty for Mixed choir and String Quartet
(2008) -- 35'
Commission Information: Chanticleer (30th anniversary) and
Shanghai Quartet (25th anniversary)
Premiere Information: Chanticleer and the Shanghai Quartet at San
Francisco Conservatory, on 3/13/08, CA
Additional Information: with support from the Freer Gallery of
Art and Arthur M. and Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,
and dedicated to the memory of former San Francisco Deputy Mayor
Peter Henschel and former San Francisco Supervisor Gordon Lau, in
honoring their great contribution to the friendship between San
Francisco-Shanghai Sister Cities
• Reviews
KC
Capriccio for Wind Ensemble and Mixed Chorus (2000)
-- 5'
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
Commission Information: UMKC Conservatory of Music
Premiere Information: September 28, 2000, Kansas City, MO, UMKC
Conservatory Wind Ensemble and the Heritage Chorale, Sarah
McKoin, conductor
Available
Separately:
Full Score - Large
(#416-41273)
Know You How Many Petals Falling
for Mixed Choir (2001) -- 4'
Published: #312-41814
Commission Information: 6th World Symposium on Choral Music
Premiere Information: August 11, 2002, Elmer Iseler Singers,
MN
Additional Information: Sung in English
Lament of
the Twin Stars arranged from Cantonese Music for Male
Choir
Available From Composer
Landscape for Mixed Choir, a
cappella (2003) -- 3'
Published: #312-41830
Commission Information: ACFEA Tour Consultants for Kansas City
Chorale
Premiere Information: June 7, 2003, Kansas City Chorale, Chorus
America National Convention, Kansas City, MO
• Reviews
Looking
at the Sea for Women's Choir (2006) -- 4'30"
Commission Information: The Patricia Hennings New Music Fund for
the Peninsula Women’s Chorus, on the occasion of its 40th
anniversary, Martin Benvenuto, Artistic Director
Premiere Information: The Peninsula Women’s Chorus,
Conducted by Martin Benvenuto, on 3/17/07 in Menlo Park,
CA
Meditation Two Songs for
Mezzo-Soprano and Piano
Published: #111-40203
Sakura, Sakura Japanese folk
song arrangement (1994) -- 1'
Published: #312-41748
Premiere Information: Chanticleer, Asian tour, 1995-96
• Recordings
Shady Grove American folk song
arrangement for SATB Choir (2001) -- 2'
SATB
Published: #312-41841
Spring Dreams for SATB Chorus
(1997) -- 5'
Published: #312-41745
Commission Information: Ithaca College
Premiere Information: Ithaca College Chorus, Ithaca, NY, November
15, 1997
• Reviews
Tang Poems Cantata for Men's
Chorus a cappella -- 12'
Published: #312-41694
Commission Information: Meet The Composer
Premiere Information: Chanticleer, New York, NY, October,
1995
Additional Information: See also: Original version for SATB
Chorus and Chamber Orchestra Second movement also available
separately, for Men's Choir, and for SATB Chorus.
• Recordings
Tang
Poems for SATB Chorus and Chamber Orchestra
Available from the Presser Rental
Library
The West Lake (2003) -- 5'
SATB, a cappella
Published: #312-41831
Commission Information: Chicago a cappella, to celebrate its 10th
anniversary
Premiere Information: Chicago a cappella, Johnathan Miller,
conductor, September 9, 2003, Chicago, IL
• Recordings
To
the New Millennium for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano and
Mixed Choir (2001) -- 10'
Published: #312-41818
Commission Information: Miami University through the project
Music at Miami for the Millennium, funded by a Miami University
President's Academic Enrichment Award.
Premiere Information: April 14, 2002. Audrey Luna, Soprano, Muri
Opatz-Muni, Mezzo-soprano, Chamber Singers and Collegiate Chorale
of Miami University, conducted by William Bausano, Oxford,
OH.
Additional Information: Texts by Du Fu, Wang Wei and Cao
Cao.
Movements:
• Happy Rain on a Spring Night
• Looking at the Sea
• Love Seeds
• Reviews
Two
Chinese Folk Songs -- 4'
Premiere Information: 16th March, 2008, Cornell University Chorus
and Glee Club, conducted by Scott Tucker, Beida Centenary Hall,
Peking University, Beijing, China
Additional Information: co-arranged with Steven
Stucky
Two
Chinese Folk Songs (arrangement for mixed chorus)
(2003) -- 6'
Commission Information: Singapore Youth Choir, for its 40th
anniversary
Premiere Information: Singapore Youth Choir, led by Jennifer Tham
in July, 2004, Singapore
Available From Composer
Written
on a Rainy Night for SATB Chorus
Additional Information: Published: 312-41837
Xuan for Mixed Choir (2001) --
5'
Published: #312-41808
Commission Information: Ithaca College School of Music
Premiere Information: November 19, 2001, Ithaca,
NY
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Ilkhom-XX
Continuum, performed at the International Festival of
Contemporary Music
|
Qi for Flute, Cello, Piano and
Percussion
|
Delos
Delos 3299:
Huaxia Contemporary Music Chinese Chamber Ensemble, soloist Chen
Yi-Han
Cavalli
Records LC05724:
Ensemble Roter Phoenix (Lan Rao, Soprano; Fengxia Xu-Wagner,
Guzheng; Micaela Gelius, Piano)
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Wu
Yu for Chamber Ensemble (6 Players)
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China Record Corporation
AL-57:
Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China, Lan Shui,
conductor
|
Shuo for String
Orchestra
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Xian Shi Concerto for
Viola and Orchestra
|
China Record Corporation
AL-57:
Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China, En Shao, conductor, Liu
Lizhou, viola
China Record Corporation
AL-57:
Central Philharmonic Orchestra of china, Lan Shui,
conductor
BIS 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui/Cond.; Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, Cho-Liang
Lin/Violins; Kimberly Marshall/Organ
BIS 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony, Lan Shui, conductor
BIS 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui/Cond.; Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, Cho-Liang
Lin/Violins
BIS 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui/Cond.; Kimberly
Marshall/Organ
BIS 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui/Cond.; Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, Cho-Liang
Lin/Violins
|
TU for Orchestra
|
Bis 1352:
Momentum
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui/Cond.; Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, Cho-Liang
Lin/Violins; Kimberly Marshall/Organ
"Chen Yi's whirling music shrinks cultural
distances to the size of the room. With energy and purpose, she
employs Western instruments such as the string quartet and piano,
but her language--ah her language--springs from roots embedded in
Chinese melody and sonority. The result is an energizing mix of
the universal and the culturally specific."
-David Stabler, The
Oregonian
"Her voice is extraordinary, her gifts
remarkable, and to have the honor of a new work from this great
composer is very meaningful to me."
-Gerard Schwarz
"Chen Ye is a Chinese composer with experience in
both Chinese traditional music and European Art Music. She
smashes the two worlds together in a way that reveals deep
knowledge of both— an unusual skill."
-American Record
Guide
"…It's easy to understand how she has
achieved so much success; these works are loaded with unusual
orchestral colors, vibrant rhythms, and tart melodies, primarily
inspired by Chinese folk and court musics…the off-kilter,
often jolting rhythms are tempered with tranquil episodes, giving
Chen's music an engaging drama and satisfying balance."
-Art Lange,
Fanfare
"Chen Yi is a truly gifted composer of wide
ranging expressiveness, with a distinctive voice…there's
no question that Chen has something to say and abundant means at
her disposal with which to say it."
-David Hurwitz,
ClassicsToday.com
"…now one of the most distinctive
composers of her generation… simply being in the presence
of this hardy woman…made this evening the standout event
in a full week of concertgoing in New York."
-Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
"Now non-Western countries are among the leading
exporters of Western music or, better put, a vibrant hybrid (as
with Chen Yi)."
-John Rockwell, The
New York Times
"Chen Yi is a brilliant composer and inspired
teacher whose great talent has enriched the culture of her
adopted country."
-
"In her compositions, Chen Yi tries to distill
from Chinese and Western traditional music the essential
character and spirit and to develop materials abstractly in
accordance with new concepts. Duo Ye No. 2, Ge Xu
(Antiphony), Piano Concerto and Second
Symphony (for full orchestra) thoughtfully combine the
Western orchestral idiom with traditional Eastern pentatonic
tonalities. As the brass opening of Duo Ye, No. 2
demonstrates, Chen is a bold (and sometimes humorous) composer
who orchestrates intelligently and effectively. Her octet
Sparkle is a refreshing expression of glittering
passion with magical textures, and the sextet Near
Distance is a meditation on ancient culture and modern
civilization, very skillfully drawing together the music of East
and West. That, and the desire to create 'real music' for society
and future generations, is her main goal."
-Contemporary
Composers
"The music that emerges from the melange of
influences is extraordinarily rich in color and dramatic power,
with a canny use of Chinese materials that makes them easily
accessible to the Western listener"
-San Francisco
Chronicle
"I want to speak in a natural way in my own
language, and that is a combination of everything I have learned
from the past -- what I learned in the conservatory, and what I
learned in the field collecting folk songs. It's all a source for
my imagination… If you just put them together as Eastern
and Western, then it sounds artificial -- they don't sound
together. But if you can merge them in your blood, then they
sound natural together."
-Chen Yi, San
Francisco Chronicle
"Ms. Chen's large body of work, in which Chinese
and Western influences and instrumentation mingle freely and
colorfully."
-Allan Kozinn, The
New York Times
"Chen's compositional style distils Chinese and
Western traditional music to form abstract canvases of sound. But
her works are often marked by bold wit and striking
orchestration."
-Gramophone Online
News
"She is both a musician - and she is a wonderful
composer…I love when somebody writes in the way that you
feel is instrumentally good…The other thing that I really
love about Chen Yi is that she's really incredibly well grounded
in a number of different traditions. She has great chops for
writing contemporary music. She also knows many traditional
Chinese styles."
-Yo-Yo Ma (quoted in an
interview with John Soltes), The Daily Targum (Rutgers
University)
"Chen's harmonic language is surprisingly
flexible. While her music generally inhabits a world that is
tonal if not always triadic, she also convincingly writes pieces
that are East Coast angular…in all cases, her writing is
highly idiomatic and effective, and her scoring is colorful and
vibrant. Her sense of line and direction, while often unusual,
works well, and her expression of form is idiosyncratic, yet
strong and convincing. Chen handles atmospheric, stark, and busy
textures, equally well, and at times her music displays a
startling level of ferocity. Song in Winter is a
particularly good illustration of the last of these
qualities…the piece in fact sports some of the most
vehemently rowdy music this reviewer has encountered in some
times. Yet the writing in this example works staggeringly well,
sounding plucky and robust, never forced or unnatural. Best of
all, Chen combines these elements into a unique whole, making the
proverbial great leap forward into a distinctive, personal
style…This critic believes that Chen's sterling body of
work, like a large, colorful, beautifully formed conch shell,
will remain long after that of many of her country's
contemporaries has disappeared…an essential recording, an
absolute must-hear."
-David Cleary, New
Music Connoisseur
"Even longtime aficionados of her brilliant
fusion of Chinese and Western strains may be astonished by the
splendor of this magnificent disc. The seven chamber pieces
included here add up to a scintillating musical portrait of a
composer at work on a thrilling cross-cultural
project…Chen Yi sets Chinese folk music and European art
music talking to each other so avidly that it can be hard to tell
where one leaves off and the other begins…the results are
endlessly exciting and beautiful. The aptly named
Sparkle, a mixed octet, bursts out of the speakers
with irrepressible urgency, its colors dancing and shining. In
the string quintet Shuo, Chen Yi mines a gorgeous
Chinese folk melody for surprising contrapuntal riches, while
Song in Winter (is) a flurry of beguiling
archaism."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"Friday was Chen Yi day at the Festival of New
American Music at California State University, Sacramento, no
doubt about it…In her enormously likable way, she was as
much fun as the music, which is saying a lot. A lot of her music,
both at noon and in the evening, seemed to speak for a spirit
both bold and risk-taking. For Chen Yi, judging by her record,
that spirit and a highly inventive talent for making music has
piled up one of the most impressive collections of awards,
commissions, residencies, and other signs of success on the
current American music scene."
-William Glackin, The
Sacramento Bee
"First, Chen writes with real fluency for
traditional Chinese instruments and combines them sensitively
with Western instruments. There is no sense of a precious or
false fusion here. Second, Chen has a feel for color that is
fresh, immediate, and gives her music a strong profile.
Especially using Western percussion, she creates sonic images
that have real presence and mystery."
-Robert Carl,
Fanfare
"Regarded as one of China's most important
composers, Chen Yi is a brilliant figure, stretching musical
boundaries at each turn. She integrates traditional Chinese
melodies, instruments, and dances into her compositional palette
and, in doing so, creates aural energy that is hard to equal.
Percussive thunder can rain down on percussively harmonic chimes,
just as dark, low-note string segments can shadow minimal sound
scapes. This collection brings together two full orchestral
pieces, including Chen Yi's rousing Symphony No. 2. There is
also, though, the phenomenally large-scale Chinese Myths
Cantata, full of oceanic vocal power and grace provided
by Chanticleer. This is a stellar snapshot of New Music's
large-ensemble present, and, hopefully, its future."
-Andrew Bartlett,
Amazon Reviews
"Chen Yi's delight in being a composer is
abundantly evident as is her ability to 'speak' several
languages. She is serious yet accessible, able to stir her
listeners, to remind them of the sheer physical energy of
orchestral music. Moreover, she devises various opportunities for
players to act-out their roles as group members or as
individuals"
-Elaine Barkin, IAWM
Journal
"Chen Yi, whose music was a welcome staple in the
Bay Area during her 1993-96 tenure as composer-in-residence for
Chanticleer and the Women's Philharmonic, continues to find deft
and and exciting ways of combining Chinese and Western musical
traditions."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"There are a number of composers these days
trying to forge a musical link between East and West, but few who
bring as much exuberant pizzazz to the task as Chen Yi. This
magnificent new CD [The Music of Chen
Yi; New Albion
NA-090] documents a concert last June devoted to her orchestral
music, and it makes the point with splendid force. The
Chinese-born composer spent three years in San Francisco as
composer-in-residence for the Women's Philharmonic and the men's
chorus Chanticleer, in the course of which she created several
exciting works for each ensemble. This disc includes three of the
orchestral pieces and culminates with the vastly ambitious
Chinese Myths Cantata. What is so thrilling about
all of these pieces is the brilliant vitality with which Chen Yi
dresses the strains of Chinese music in Western orchestral garb.
In the pictorial, all-too-brief Ge Xu (Antiphony),
for example, she re-creates the mountain top calls of a Chinese
ethnic minority, the Zhuang; the sliding string melodies and
thwacking ercussion seem to shimmer through the autumn air.
Duo Ye No. 2 sounds as if the Stravinsky of the
early ballets had looked far to the East and plundered what he
found there, sprinkling it with pugnacious orchestration and a
dash of knowing wit. And the Symphony No. 2 stands
as a dark, haunting cenotaph to the composer's late father. The
35-minute Chinese Myths Cantata, which joins
orchestra, men's chorus and a quartet of traditional Chinese
instruments, … the musical riches are all there,
especially in the choral passages, and in the high-relief solos
for the pipa, the erhu and other Chinese instruments… the
colorful genius of Chen Yi's writing shines through."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"Chen Yi is a highly trained musician who has
risen to the top in two distinct musical worlds, first in China,
then in the United States."
-The New York
Times
"To hear Chen Yi's music in a concentrated dose
this way was to be struck anew by the extraordinary artistic
vigor and imagination of her writing, and particularly by the
effortless fluency with which she melds the respective tone
colors and musical vocabularies of East and West. Few composers
today can match the sheer panache with which Chen Yi deploys an
orchestra, and it's hard to avoid the suspicion that it is
because she approaches it with her ears ringing with the sounds
of traditional Chinese instruments."
-San Francisco
Chronicle
"[Chen] is not only a master of orchestration
musical texture and instrumental color. In addition, she has the
rare ability to manipulate, then integrate musical forces of
different characters and sizes. Sealing the deal, she proves to
be a master of dramatic shape and form."
-San Francisco
Examiner
"Chen Yi's music reveals the best of Europe and
Asia… She's not a minimalist, not a serialist -- she's a
Chen Yiist.""
-Peoria
Journal-Star
"Crossing over the Pacific, Chen Yi has journeyed
into a musical world of her own. In her Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra and Points for the Chinese
lute, East and West are blended with vive and skill. Her
personality, full of joy, energy and purpose, has infused her
music with a vibrant sense of life and immediacy."
-Citation of the
Goddard Lieberson Fellowship awarded by the American Academy of
Arts and Letters
"Her music blends East, West…"
-China Daily
"Her work has a passion, control, colour and an
originality that is entirely convincing. Chen Yi's music is
suffused with a wonderful elasticity within a world of constant
tension."
-Ezra Laderman
"This is a truly remarkable disc! It contains of
seven riveting, wholly absorbing pieces by a composer whose music
I now plan to monitor as closely as possible…The opening
piece Sparkle is a dazzler. It leaps out at the
listener, maintaining its initial driving motor rhythms against
splashes of color and sudden narrative turns. Song in
Winter (joining Western harpsichord with Chinese
instruments) and Near Distance for large ensemble
offer a - highly impressive command of timbral resources. Chen Yi
has a spectacular gift for instrumentation, and this collection
of chamber pieces only whets the appetite for a sampling of her
"larger" music."
-Elliott Schwartz,
20th Century Music
"Chen has earned well-deserved attention as one
of today’s most striking musical voices. She has fused
Chinese and Western elements with perhaps more success than any
other composer, to the point where you really stop thinking about
East and West and just listen, with ears that are continually
engaged."
-Paul Horsley, The
Independent (Kansas City)
"Chen uses music the way a visual artist uses
paint, to portray scenes or moods. Often she depicts traditional
Chineses instruments and ceromonies, evoking different times and
places through music of extreme emotional intensity."
-Zachary Lewis,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"The three dance/rituals that form the core of
the work are cleverly chosen both to create maximum contrast with
each other and to match the traditional divisions of the
concerto."
-Michael Zwiebach,
SFCV
"The work’s eastern themes and rhythms, at
first difficult to grasp, became intelligible with their
subsequent iterations and variations. ‘Lion Dance,’
the first of three movements, bustled with the energy and high
spirits of a Chinese festival…The work’s most
fascinating movement, ‘YangKo,’…featured
orchestra members mimicking percussion sound vocally instead of
playing their instruments…[Terrie] Baune’s violin,
floating above the surging chant, elegantly presented the
movement’s fanciful arcs and curlicues. In the final
Turkish-flavored dance, ‘Mukam,’ Baune sparkled in an
impressive cadenza, full of high-velocity runs and muscular
double stops."
-Phyllis Rosenblum,
Santa Cruz Sentinel
"…characteristically evocative"
-Howard Reich,
Chicago Tribune
"Chen Yi is becoming the Amy Tan of the symphony
world. Like the Bay Area’s beloved novelist, Chen weaves
materials from her Chinese homeland into musical tales that
compel. Chen’s works are on the surface easy to respond to,
the way good writing is easy to understand. But the music belies
a structural ease and an assurance that combines ideas—and
instruments—central to a Western orchestra with colors and
sensibilities of the ancient civilization from the East.
Chen’s Chinese Folk Dance Suite for solo
violin and orchestra is especially easy on the ears without
slipping into the ingratiating."
-Lesley Valdes, San
Jose Mercury News
"‘Chinese Folk Dances’ [sic] is at
once very Chinese in mood, yet very Western in orchestration and
structure. In the 2nd movement, the orchestra vocally produced a
throbbing beat somewhere between the vocalise of a Philip Glass
piece and a soft rap number. Setting off the solo violin in this
way was most effective…Even with the orchestral
conclusion, the violin was not overshadowed, but shone through
brightly right into the final, big round of applause."
-Richard Lynde,
Register-Pajaronia (Watsonville, CA)
"…her music spoke eloquently for itself.
The Chinese Folk Dance Suite is a beguiling example
of Chen’s unique gifts... the work is inspired by popular
folk songs and dances of the composer’s homeland, but the
work’s endless melodic invention and vibrant orchestral
writing are entirely her own… The beauties of the fluid,
22-minute suite were readily apparent. Once again, Chen has given
the orchestra—and the world—a scintillating new
work…"
-Georgia Rowe, Contra
Costa
"In three movements for solo violin and
orchestra, she channels different folk traditions of her homeland
into a zesty new creation. In the work’s most imaginative
stroke, Chen Yi strings a beautiful violin melody over a piquant
rhythmic mesh of vocalized syllables from the entire
orchestra—the only instrumental sounds other than the
soloist’s are a few brief jangles form the percussion and
the occasional cello pizzicato. The two outer movements, though
more straightforward, are nearly as arresting…"
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
|
Tu for
Orchestra
|
"…dramatic intensity to the 9+1+1 rhythmic
motif that underscores Tu (composed in response to
the attack on the World Trade Center)."
-Art Lange,
Fanfare
"…it was the orchestra that gave her
concerto its character. In the ballad, a softly twittering,
sometimes whispering background brought underlying enchantment to
Yo-Yo Ma's rhapsodic melodies, with dark, low winds deepening the
solo cello's resonance. In the dance, conga and bongos buoyed the
happy spirit. Even when Ma took off in the global fantasy, the
slipping and sliding violins seemed to lubricate his
fingers."
-Mark Swed, Los
Angeles Times
"…an immediately appealing, colorful and
rhythmically vibrant work. Ballad, Dance, and
Fantasy is brilliantly and intricately orchestrated in
the contemporary manner, but its folksiness as well as its sense
of drama make it compelling even on first acquaintance. This
not-so-easy piece was greeted with a a standing ovation."
-Timothy Mangan, The
Orange County Register
"…lovely and lyrical…beautifully
integrated score…sounds neither Eastern nor Western, but
some new hybrid…magnificently communicative"
-Willa J. Conrad,
Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)
"…a strong manner of merging Chinese folk
background…into a Western orchestral mastery shot through
with dark glints. …a dazzling virtuoso piece for
supercellist Yo-Yo Ma… Chen Yi's new Ballad, Dance and
Fantasy is superior stuff for composer and cellist/collaborator,
an extraordinary synthesis of Chinese melodic essence and manic
contemporaneity that reaches beyond borders,…pauses now
and then for moments of sweetness, regains a dizzying momentum
and, at a breath-stopping end, simply and wonderously
evaporates."
-Alan Rich, LA
Weekly
"Chen Yi's music is about storytelling and
theater, and a serach for strking and original
effects…Orchestra players whisper, stringed instruments
scurry, the high and low possibilities of winds are tested, and
timpani explode like cannonfire. This is a narrative bustling for
attention, using orchestra sound as its stage and props."
-Bernard Holland, The
New York Times
"[Yo-Yo Ma commented] "Chen Yi's music sounds
both modern and ancient. Her music manages to sound both
authentic and unexpected, which is what you always want from
art.""
-Bradley Bambarger,
Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)
"The most generous ovations were for the composer
Chen Yi…Chen Yi is recapitulating the efforts of Russian,
Finnish, Czech and Hungarian composers of a century ago or more,
importing peasant tunes and rhythms as a way of infusing
refinement with authenticity. Yet there's something deeply
American too, about the piece's natural embrace of styles."
-Justin Davidson,
Newsday
"…the brooding first movement contains
some of the most fantastic orchestral combinations I've heard in
years: solo cello over deep winds, soft string glissandos and
harmonics, whispered chants from the percussion section."
-Alex Ross,
www.therestisnoise.com
"…a dazzler… Technically assured
and full of surprising sonorities, this symphony brings together
Eastern and Western melody and harmony with some imaginative and
effective scoring…"
-Melinda Bargreen,
Seattle Times
"…full of interest and enjoyable to
hear… lively quirkiness, vitality and fun. …Chen
uses skilled imagination with instrumental timbres…"
-Philippa Kiraly,
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"… a 20-minute burst of freshness…
both muscular and minutely shaded… drama… sudden
contrasts in tiny shafts of light. Chen Yi belongs less to the
exotic camp than to the great tradition of émigré
composers."
-Justin Davidson,
Newsday.com
"Chen Yi's Si Ji [is in] four
seamlessly connected parts. It makes use of the orchestra,
alternating extremely diaphanous textures with shattering
eruptions of sound,"
-Harvey Sachs,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Si Ji weaves together delicate
webs of sound, different scales and eruptive clusters according
to a well-planned dramaturgy… Chen Yi… combines
high compositional standards with accessibility in an ideal
way."
-Jörg Huber,
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
"Ms. Chen creates a third musical world, one that
looks neither to Europe nor to Asia and yet is a distant mirror
for both. In Si Ji color becomes a kind of
counterpoint, layer added on layer… the forward progress
is a thoughtfully edited stream of consciousness, one idea
leading to the next."
-Bernard Holland, New
York Times
"… a new work… of impressive
coloristicm and dramatic character… a beautifully realized
work filled with enchanting and cataclysmic ideas."
-Donald Rosenberg,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Olympic Fire is an attractive piece that could
well go into the general repertoire."
-Michael Darvell,
www.classicalsource.com
"…thrilling…
…this was one of the finest new works I've encountered for
a long time."
-Christian Hoskins,
Music OMH
"…this was a knockout
Her music is a fruitful creative fusion of Chinese and Western
influences.
‘Olympic Fire’ was perfectly in tune with the
occasion – plunging headlong into tremendous energy and
excitement…"
-Jonathan Burton,
http://jonathanburton.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/proms-chen-yi-olympic-fire-duke-ellington-harlem/
"…vividly scored… Taking
inspiration from a quarte of 11th century poems, she frames a set
of four distinct episodes, from a rhythmically sharp opening
dominated by the percussion to a sparse, evanescent
close…richly evocative."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"…a brilliant showpiece…a kind of
compressed symphony, with four distinct sections depicting the
seasons. It has both the intensity and originality of
Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring.""
-Georgia Rowe, San
Jose Mercury News
"Chen's modern techniques and complex tonal
palette serve as a bridge between the musical sounds of East and
West. Writing different parts for each of the ensemble's nine
voices, the composer has created a delicately layered work. She
treats voices like orchestral instruments and this yields
wonderful results. At times the voices sound like strings, later
like brass, and most strikingly, something like bells, putting
you in mind of ripples created by small stones dropped in clear
water. The singers embraced the music beautifully."
-M. L. Rantala, Hyde
Park Herald
"The short piece, ‘The West Lake,’
set to a poem by an 11th-Century Chinese writer in praise of a
fabled lake. Chen is deft at molding Chinese and European
elements into a vivid, compelling soundscape. Singing ‘The
West Lake,’ in Mandarin, Chicago a cappella's nice voices
did wonders with the echoey effects, enunciating syllables in an
evocation of Chinese operatic cadence. The first stanza gradually
swelled, suggestive of a rising sun and the lapping waves -- and
the overall fell was awe at nature's beauty: It's a wondrous
miniature, for which Chen, who was in attendance, and the chorus,
took deserved bows."
-Ted Shen, Chicago
Tribune
"Chen is deft at molding Chinese and European
elements into a vivid, compelling soundscape…It's a
wondrous miniature."
-Ted Shen, Chicago
Tribune
"…Chen is deft at molding Chinese and
European elements into a vivid, compelling soundscape…The
first stanza gradually swelled, suggestive of a rising sun and
the lapping waves--and the overall fell was awe at nature's
beauty: It's a wonderful miniature."
-Ted Shen, Chicago
Tribune
"… its vibrant energy and imaginative
depth are unmistakable."
-San Francisco
Chronicle
"…The highlight was Chen Yi's "The West
Lake." …Chen's modern techniques and complex tonal palette
serve as a bridge between the musical sounds of East and
West…the composer has created a delicately layered work.
…She treats voices like orchestral instruments and this
yields wonderful results. At times the voices sound like strings,
later like brass, and most strikingly, something like bells,
putting you in mind of ripples created by small stones dropped in
clear water."
-M.L. Rantala, Hyde
Park Herald
"Chen Yi's "China West Suite" … four short
exercises on Chinese themes, by turns stately and exuberant, and
all of them done with the composer's mastery of form and tonal
weight."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"… a welcome addition to the
composer’s body of work…Chen’s work shows a
brilliant feel for the dissonant implications of the folk music
she quotes. The often rapid variations between the original
material and her own extensions of it were handled
seamlessly."
-Benjamin Frandzel,
San Francisco Classical Voice
"A week has gone by, and I still keep thinking
about Ms. Chen's "As in a Dream" … The playing seemed to
capture the contours and inflections of a sung Chinese
melody."
-Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
"…the oldest Chinese tradition and
contemporary music technique are merged successfully…the
traditional Chinese glissando and vibrato became various delicate
and fascinating expression, Chinese speech became music directly,
by singing in exaggerated reciting style."
-Frankfurter
Allgemeine
"As in a dream was impressive for
its mix of leisurely yet elaborate vocal lines for soprano and
skittish fluttering writing for [violin and cello]."
-The New York
Times
"…wave-like inflections…sighing,
questioning contours…went down like honey"
-Zachary Lewis,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Near Distance presents the
composer 'lost in thought about ancient culture and modern
civilization'; she is obviously thinking about the parallels and
contrasts between the music of the East and of the West."
-The Boston
Globe
"Chen Yi's sextet, Near Distance,
evinced some delicate, dramatic sonorities in its fusion of east
Asian and Western musical impulses."
-Chicago
Tribune
|
Qi for Flute, Cello, Piano and
Percussion
|
"Chinese America composer Chen Yi offered the
world premiere of Qi another of her fascinating
cultural interweavings, a poetic essay marked by dynamic extremes
and textural imagination."
-Josef Woodard, LA
Times
"…a marvelous hybrid piece — Western
instruments, including an array of percussion, called into the
re-creation of an ancient Chinese concept of space and infinity
that only music (never works) could properly describe. Among this
new generation of Chinese composers, most of them now emigrated,
Chen is particularly interesting for her ability to keep her own
roots growing in foreign soil; what I know of her music
(including a new disc on New Albion) spans vast cultural
spaces with a most endearing, easy grace."
-Alan Rich, LA
Weekly
"Qi is a very effective 10-minute
piece of nature-impressionism, the sketch-like designs integrated
into a whole, the sounds compelling and intriguing."
-Colin Anderson, The
Classical Source
"…very effective…the sketch-like
designs integrated into a whole, the sounds compelling and
intriguing."
-Colin Anderson,
www.classicalsource.com
"The work's sense of unfolding is first-rate, its
feel for ensemble color is nicely gauged, and its energy level is
at times breathtaking"
-David Cleary, The
New Music Connoiseur
"This dazzling work, a sonic depiction of life
force by one of the most talented of a group of recent Chinese
émigré composers, combines Western and Asian
sonorities and aesthetics. Song of Winter for
harpsichord and zheng is another gem."
-Frank J. Oteri,
Chamber Music
"…there was much to admire and recall with
stimulation and pleasure during the season. My choice falls on
Chen Yi's beautifully conceived Percussion Concerto…
drawing musical styles and atmospheres from East and West into a
coherent whole, proving again that music is a single language
with a wealth of accents… I was moved and thrilled to hear
a musical work first and a piece for virtuoso percussionist
second."
-Denby Richards,
Musical Opinion
"… the improvisational fantasy of Chen
Yi's lovely Qi… translates the essence of [Chinese]
culture into Western instruments, tapping into their aggressive
quality for dramatic impact and using snappy underlying riffs as
a means of unity"
-David Patrick Stearns,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Qi, a thrilling new chamber work
by Chen Yi, [is] ...exhilarating. As ever with this formidable
composer, the music draws on traditional Chinese sonorities,
transforming them and putting them into service of a fiercely
dramatic formal plan. Spare melodic fragments — plucked and
sliding cello figures, feathery flourishes by the flute —
begin and end the piece. But in between comes an accumulation of
weight and momentum, culminating in a pair of ferocious outbursts
dominated by the percussion."
-SF
Chronicle
"Qi, a glittering, kinetic
juggernaut of a piece, said yet more about the immense talent of
the Chinese-born Chen Yi, who now lives in America and can write
academic-arcane and Pops-accessible (well, almost) works with
equal facility and freshness"
-Richard Buell, The
Boston Globe
"The final passages of this work were perhaps the
most powerful in the entire concert."
-Manasi Vydyanath,
Chicago Maroon
"The music proved entirely gripping."
-San Francisco
Chronicle
"…a richly colored evocation of the
Chinese bamboo flute."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"…confident orchestration, shimmering
tonalities, and a beguiling palette of emotional and expressive
gestures for the flutist."
-Paul Ingram,
Fanfare
"…a sturdy composition with moments of
intense color."
-Kenneth LaFave,
Arizona Republic
"…original…There is a subtle
co-mingling between Eastern and Western idioms which gives the
three-movement work its unique flavor."
-Edward Reichel,
Deseret Morning News
"In its entirety, there was an unmistakable
Asiatic idiom - an astonishing musical language that was at times
groaning painfully, at times whispering, or stridently loud and
buzzing, but on the whole gleaming with style. The wild volcanic
dance at the end had thrilling passages, but nevertheless was
also quite fascinating in its own right. The audience in the
concert hall had every right to be animated in response."
-Eckart Schwinger,
Tagesspiegel Online Dienste Yerlag GmbH
"Chen Yi's Fiddle Suite is delightful;
Chinese melodies go into Western harmony and counterpoint, and
Western instruments imitate Chinese timbres and attacks."
-Richard Dyer, Boston
Globe
"In Fiddle Suiteby Chen Yi, a
latter-day Chinese-American Bartok, whose ingenious works seek to
reconcile Chinese melodies and modes with Western harmonies and
counterpoint, the two cultures march in step to her kinetic and
inventive rhythms."
-Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
"Chen's Fiddle Suite for Erhu/Huqin
and String Quartet integrates the versatile voice of the Chinese
fiddles into that of the quartet. The work's three movements -
are almost a concerto for erhu/huqin and the quartet. In both
pieces [Zhou Long's Soul and Chen Yi's Fiddle
Suite], the composers effectively merged Eastern and
Western musical traditions, resulting in rock-solid pieces that
some might call cross-over works but which are rather highly
effective stand-alone scores that mingle best of both
worlds."
-Joe & Elizabeth
Kahn, Independent Weekly
"…in the middle movement [of Fiddle
Suite, where the erhu slides and groans expressively and
the Western strings play with rarefied harmonies and striking
sound effects, collectively producing a richly atmospheric tone
picture"
-Richmond
Times-Dispatch
"…an extraordinary Percussion
Concerto… refulgent with lush Chinese romanticism…
programmatic and evocative… and a solo percussion cadenza
whose phusical and aural gymnastics defy description… The
BBCSO seemed to relish every moment of it all"
-Hilary Finch,
www.timesonline.co.uk
"...the effect was exhilarating; Chen Yi clearly
knows how to bring Western and Eastern modes into meaningful
dialogue."
-Nick Kimberly,
Evening Standard (London)
"…a mixture of western and Chinese
percussion instruments against a full symphony orchestra.
And… it works: Chen Yi creates a genuine vesceral quality
and the Chinese percussion instruments have a real function
within the otherwise western orchestration rather than being
blandly superimposed. Oriental scales colour the music but don't
define it."
-Erica Jeal, The
Guardian
|
Feng for Woodwind Quintet
|
"Though not exactly a breezy work,
Feng (which means "wind" in Chinese), composed by
the celebrated Chen Yi, is shorter in length (two movements) and
diversity of style. But there is not dearth of textual interest.
Ms. Chen has discovered a way to exploit Western instruments and
even Western harmonies without uprooting and divorcing herself
from Chinese culture."
-Barry L. Cohen, The
New Music Connoisseur
"By the time we reached the last piece, Chen's
"Sound of the Five," I was scoured out. But she wasn't. Chen's
music is irresistible, urelenting. With a smile and a wave, she
yanked us back to life, turning Western instruments into
vernacular Chinese bells, drums, pipes, and a 2,000-year-old
zither."
-David Stabler, The
Oregonian
"…sounds that merge the earthy, modal
music of Chinese folk song with the hard-driving and harmonically
astringent styles of Western contemporary music."
-Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
"Sound of Five for Cello and String Quartet was
perhaps the most successful piece of the evening…this
composition also stresses the adaptation of Western atonality and
musical structures to the timbres of Chinese instruments."
-Joe & Elizabeth
Kahn, Independent Weekly
"The brief two-part piece opens with an ingenious
tune that stays in the mind, then barnstorms to a close with a
furious dance."
-Paul Horsley, The
Kansas City Star
|
Ning Trio for Violin, Cello and
Pipa
|
"…riveting…lacy tunes on the violin
and cello interact with an eerily high-pitched skittish melody on
the pipa."
-Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
"Chen Yi’s Ning… is a
major new work integrating the pipa into a small ensemble of
Western instruments (with cello and violin). It succeeds where so
many other cross-cultural works have failed, establishing a
feeling of balance and unity between instruments that speak
different languages, forcing the Western players into places that
aren’t entirely comfortable, yet never distorting the
natural capacities of their instruments. The piece has structure,
depth of emotion, a wealth of color and pure aural fantasy, and
it ingratiates itself on the imagination with each subsequent
hearing… the dark, even ghoulish intimacies of Chen
Yi…"
-Philip Kennicott,
Washington Post
"…the pipa…blended seamlessly with
its Western counterparts…Ning, rotating solo
lines for all three players, had many of the same sonic textures
as the great guitar works of Rodrigo or Sor. Chen Yi is a
composer worth seeking out."
-Keith Powers, Boston
Herald
"…striking, texturally
colorful…veering from frenzied agitation to meditative
resignation…"
-Vivien Schweitzer,
The New York Times
"…The strongest impressions were left by
the music of Chen Yi…Ningis an angry musical
response to the 1937 Massacre in Nanjing. The music is dramatic,
with lacerating violence finally moving toward meditation and the
blessing of souls. The composer's compelling style bridges East
and West, like the timbres of the instruments."
-Richard Dyer, Boston
Globe
"Ning (2002) by Chen Yi, used
(violin, cello, and pipa) in a melancholy and sometimes
terrifyingly visceral evocation of China during World War II. A
traditional song "Jasmine Flower," is buried and fragmented
within the work's textures."
-Allan Kozinn, The
New York Times
"A sorrowful but hopeful mood… pervaded
the Chinese composer Chen Yi’s Ning (2001),
her subtly powerful lament for a homeland ravaged by war…
plucking sounds eerily rose and fell against, and finally merged
with, the agitated statements of violin and cello."
-John von Rhein,
Chicago Tribune
"…was a departure for the composer from
her typical joyful music. It began with explosive energy and even
some anger. The chromatic ascending and descending scales on the
violin and cello added depth to the piece. Contrasting this was
piano turned artillery, lobbing 'shots' of struck chords over the
bow of the audience."
-Andrew Druckenbord,
Post-Gazette
"I especially liked… Chen Yi's "Burning,"
… It added up to the liveliest new-music concert I've
heard in ages."
-Terry Teachout, The
Washington Post
"Ms. Chen's writing is energetic and thoughtfully
shaped, and deftly conveyed the intensity of these small
dramas."
-Allan Kozinn, The
New York Times
"Chen's "The Talking Fiddle" [first movement of
At the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert]
provided the brightest, freshest flavors. Her music began by
conjuring up a bustling celebration that was full of joy...The
viola shouted the greeting first. The others chimed in
lustily."
-Steven Brown, The
Charlotte Observer
"…the Ying Quartet performed the world
premiere of Chen Yi's At the Kansas City Chinese New Year
Concert. …compelling piece… a fascinating amalgam
of classical Eastern and Western idioms."
-Jeremy Eichler, New
York Times
"…this concerto has wonderful moments.
[Chen Yi] tastefully deploys expressive effects (glissandos in
double notes, for example), takes the trouble to exploit the
soloist's lyrical qualities, and contrives a colorful
accompaniment."
-David Hurwitz,
Classics Today.com
"The music moves in gigantic waves with
progressively higher crests. Chen Yi's clarity of formal purpose
is matched and supported by the brilliance of her orchestration.
Eleanor's Gift is a stunning work with an exhilirating
sweep to it. The orchestra took obvious pleasure in rendering
this highly successful new score."
-Richard Festinger,
San Francisco Classical Voice
"The cello is in almost constant song: beguiler,
protester and persuader. The orchestral tissue moves in
kaleidoscopic richness with discordant eruptions, whispers and
breathing effects."
-Rob Barnett,
Musicweb
"…evocative…evolved slowly from a
delicate blur – the musical equivalent of magical realism
– to a hefty, shimmering structure"
-Allan Kozinn, The
New York Times
"…confidently unpretentious."
-Miriam Seidel,
Philadelphia Inquirer
"What's remarkable about the piece is the
profusion of ideas and the sophistication of the scoring. East
meets West in a series of mammoth outbursts and quiet silky
exchanges, and the meeting is congenial."
-San Francisco
Examiner
"This is far from timid music, and it sent its
vivid messages along a sensory hotline to which these particular
musicians hotly responded. Ms. Chen, in other words, knows the
sounds she can build from an orchestra, knowing too that the
Central Philharmonic players share her relish for them."
-The New York
Times
"...a refreshingly original piece combining
Western orchestral idioms with traditional Eastern pentatonic
tonalities. Although only a few minutes long, it is a
thoughtfully conceived composition of youthful, yet not
unpolished, expression."
-New York
Post
"…one 15-minute movement of much
expressive beauty and evocative sounds in the orchestra, above
which the cello soars to great effect."
-David Moore,
American Record Guide
"Chen Yi explores sophisticated dimensions in
sound… the tartness, the asperity were unapologetic, the
marshaling of events shrewd, the orchestration masterly…
An extraordinary ear, a formidable talent, an original— how
good to have made the acquaintance of Chen Yi."
-The Boston
Globe
"Based on the singing of field workers in
southern China, [Ge Xu] is richly affirmative, a
feeling that is difficult to convey without sounding facile or
simple minded."
-Richard Dyer, Boston
Globe
"The flute soloist, Donna Orbovich, captivated
the audience with her tongue tricks and ease in free pitches from
Western constraints. Chen showed brilliance in mixing brass
passages and loud orchestral thuds with the solo flute."
-News-Tribune
"…truly delightful and substantial flute
concerto…Although the idiom of the concerto is firmly
rooted in the present, the inspirations are the sounds of ancient
Chinese wind instruments, and the piece grows organically from
the rootstock of pure Chinese folk music…It is a pleasure
to welcome this important new work to the flute repertoire."
-Leslie Sheills, Pan
Magazine
"Chen's "Momentum" … very successfully
fuses spare, sinuous traditional Chinese elements with the
complexity and rhythmic vibrancy of the European modernist
tradition. … memorable for its astonishing effects
…"
-Mike Greenberg, San
Antonio Express-News
"…progressive in design and concentrated
in authority… Chen Yi’s score upped the ante even
further… Seeking an analogy to such forces as ‘the
tension of breathing lava,’ with some ferocious licks for
violin solo,… Momentum often pushed the
orchestra to limits of sonority and sectional articulation."
-Andrew Adler, The
Louisville Courier-Journal
"…three ways of looking at China. Chen
begins her impassioned 1998 10-minute score with a piccolo
imitating a Chinese flute playing a folk tune. She builds up into
a ferocious holocaust of sound but somehow the sweetness of
folksong survives in the strings."
-Mark Swed, The Los
Angeles Times
"…lyrical yet stormy melodic flow."
-Art Lange,
Fanfare
"The fun of the evening was… pretty well
concentrated in the final work… a flashy and colourful
Percussion Concerto written for the brilliant
Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie by Chinese composer Chen
Yi. Chen has designed a striking visual as well as aural piece
for a large battery of tuned and untuned percussion, all inspired
by the arts of the Beijing Opera… the sonic effects were
riveting."
-Ken Winters, The
Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"For the first two minutes there’s the
astonishing range of sounds made by a collection of traditional
Chinese gongs, and when the orchestra enters it feels
effortlessly oriental."
-Andrew McGregor,
BBCi music
"[Chen Yi’s Percussion Concerto] was
Western-classical in structure, shape and physical orchestration
but Chinese enough in flavour and content… given the
stunning presence of Scottish soloist Evelyn Glennie."
-The Straits Times
(Singapore)
"…a major and fiery new score by Chen
Yi… The orchestra is used subtly, the references to
Chinese opera are well integrated into a score tailored for
Western musicians and instruments, and the work builds to a
powerful yet complex climax. It is poetic music in which sounds
exotic to Western ears are deployed without their exoticism being
advertised."
-Philip Kennicott,
Washington Post
"...a mixture of western and Chinese percussion
instruments against a full symphony orchestra. Chen Yi creates a
genuine visceral quality and the Chinese percussion instruments
have a real function within the otherwise western orchestration
rather than being blandly superimposed. Oriental scales colour
the music but don't define it."
-Erica Jeal, The
Guardian
"... a richly engaging musical experience. In
shimmering surges, intuitively crested waves and sudden eddies,
the piece pulls the listener along. There's kind of tidal force
to the piece, a perpetual and varied connection between its
jittery, storm-tossed surface and a deeper movement... The piece
spins the temperaments and timbres of East and West together
without distorting them."
-Steven Winn, San
Francisco Chronicle
"Most rewarding is Chen Yi's concerto, which
boasts her trademark fusion of Chinese and Western
elements."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"...an extraordinary Percussion Concerto...
refulgent with lush Chinese romanticism... programmatic and
evocative... and a solo percussion cadenza whose physical and
aural gymnastics defy description... The BBCSO seemed to relish
every moment of it all."
-Hilary Finch,
www.timesonline.co.uk
"Percussion Concerto bears achingly beautiful
passages in its three movements…mixed at times with
feverish intensity…
Highlights of the 20-minute piece included the energetic and
varied percussion…and the wonderful Chinese operatic-style
recitation of Shu Shi’s “Prelude to Water
Tune”"
-Evans Donnell,
www.tennessean.com
"…steely…evocative, Chen Yi's
spirited Piano Concerto strangely seemed to summon textures and
harmonies one associates with French impressionsm. Yet there were
hints of Asian melodic motifs streaming through the score."
-Cecelia Porter,
Washington Post
"... based on a Chinese folk song but is in no
sense folksy in spirit, passes through phases of extreme
aggressiveness and lovely delicacy,... The piano shimmers and
glistens, or confronts an assertive and colorful orchestra."
-New York
Post
"… a happy rush of trills and scales and
percussive explosions, but it also explores sophisticated pitch
relationships."
-Los Angeles
Times
"… the texture is bright and
magical."
-The New York
Times
"The rite (ceremony) begins, slowly the music
sets in, which imitates the Chinese instruments Suona and Sheng.
The piece with the title Praying for Rain gets faster and
faster. The moment intensifies, the runs and motives get wilder,
more urgent, until the long anticipated rain sets in… The
lifelong study of traditional Chinese music leads Chen Yi to
settings of Chinese melodic structures… The second
movement... is touching in its simplicity. Song of the Chu
conjures up far away lands and old times. The finale Shifan
Drums and Gongs is highly expressionistic, the percussive
elements reminding of Stravinsky’s Sacre, but still
having their own expressive power…"
-Von Markus Dippold,
Stuttgart Daily
"…The rhetorical force and dark beauty of
Chen Yi's Symphony No. 2 are undeniable .... a
memorably powerful statement whose emotional and even
philosophical impact emerges from carefully crafted musical
materials."
-San Francisco
Chronicle
"…a dark, pulsing and deeply interesting
piece… I was especially impressed by some eloquent
passages for mixed percussion - death rattles from the snare
drums, followed by the remnants of a chime, repeated again and
again in a long and brutal fade out."
-Tim Page, The
Washington Post
"It is an ever-cresting surge of slithering bass
sonorities, high ghostly string harmonics, filigree woodwind
lines, bright splashes of brass, pointillistic flecks of
percussion.… feast for the ears, and its strongest images
lingered."
-The New York
Times
|
Septet for Erhu,
Pipa, Percussion and Saxophone Quartet
|
"At first glance, the saxophone quartet Prism and
the instrumental ensemble Music From China would seem to be
strange bedfellows…
At the Freer Gallery’s Meyer Auditorium on Sunday, the
answer seemed to be that, given the right music, this could be a
strangely satisfying collaboration.
Chen Yi’s Septet split the two ensembles, with the
saxes’ energetic punctuation answered antiphonally by the
more restrained strings and percussion, and this worked
well…"
-Joan Reinthaler, The
Washington Post
"A highlight was "Tibetan Tunes"…Recorders
and the two-stringed Erhu were Chen's inspirations here, and the
trio [Violin, Cello, Piano] mimicked both with serene trills,
chime-like chords and a spine-tingling glide up the cello."
-Zachary Lewis,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"…examination of the score reveals a
musical palette that belies the work’s apparent
simplicity.
…Textures are intricately woven from myriad musical
strands; every section of the ensemble is given multiple musical
and technical challenges…
Chen Yi’s craft is so masterful, that despite the
work’s inherent challenges for performers, to listeners,
the musc sounds effortless and unpretentious."
-Gary Hill, WASBE
Newsletter
"… the music’s overall effect is as
lovely and seductive as its subject matter demands."
-Joshua Kosman, The
San Francisco Chronicle
"[Chen Yi] was back in [San Francisco] again over
the weekend with a new piece, and the old emotions –
excitement, satisfaction, gratitude – surfaced all over
again."
-Joshua Kosman, The
San Francisco Chronicle
"Someone in the audience Tuesday was moved to
shout, “Splendid!” – and I can’t blame
him a bit."
-Richard S. Ginell,
The Los Angeles Times
"The listener’s experience of the work is
akin to unrolling an ancient Chinese scroll, savouring the
wonders as they pass before you."
-Allan Ulrich, The
Financial Times (London)
"Chen Yi’s compositions are always
intriguing and they usually bear an immediate signature – a
blending of Western and Eastern influences and a buoyant
enthusiasm."
-Andrew Patner, The
View from Here
"On paper, they seemed like strange bedfellows.
Yet the unusual combination of a male vocal ensemble with a
string quartet resulted in one of the most successful
performances of contemporary music in recent history.
Most sections of the work presented the chorus and string quartet
together, a unique and unusual sonority."
-Timothy McDonald,
The Kansas City Star
"Chen’s writing is engaging, and straddles
a line between a 20th century soundscape…and a more olden
and…foreign musical world."
-Kwami Coleman, The
San Francisco Classical Voice
"From the Path of Beauty feels so
all-encompassing its like a miniature universe, with a seemingly
endless variety of sonorities, textures and moods.
It is one of the most enticing new works I’ve heard in a
while.
Chen has earned well-deserved attention as one of today’s
most striking musical voices. She has fused Chinese and Western
elements with perhaps more success than any other composer, to
the point where you really stop thinking about East and West and
just listen, with ears that are continually engaged."
-Paul Horsley, The
Independent (Kansas City)
"A compelling blend of Chinese and western
musical thought. It is not easy listening, but it is a fantastic
work, altogether worthy of the company it was keeping in last
night’s program [Brahms and Ravel]."
-Richard Todd, The
Ottawa Citizen
"… exquisitely crafted"
-Allan Ulrich, The
Financial Times (London)
"Chen Yi woos with a seductive and distinctive
‘Beauty’ [Headline]"
-Joshua Kosman, The
San Francisco Chronicle
"…blockbuster…Spring
Dreams… The music is so immediately alluring that
it grips the ears and never lets go."
-Donald Rosenberg,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"For sheer visceral effect, nothing matched
Chen's Spring Dreams. The idea of 'petals falling'
was conveyed through rhythmic whispers and chatters, birds by
pulsating whistles. In the midst of this cumulative din the sound
of voices actually singing came as a jolt. Chen has the ability
to create a minor sensation with the simplest of means."
-Paul Horsely, The
Kansas City Star
"One of the highlights of the evening was Chen
Yi's Chinese Poems…Judging from the
audience's response (a mid-concert standing ovation), the work
was a resounding success."
-Frank Albinder, San
Francisco Classical Voice
"In her exquisitely resourceful Chinese
Poems, composer Chen Yi put all six ensembles [of the San
Francisco Girls Chorus] to work in the original Mandarin,
interspersing intricately wrought harmonies and graceful
pentatonic melodies with the occasional chirrup and whooping
glissando."
-Joshua Kosman, The
San Francisco Chronicle
"I would like you to know that in my many years
of listening to choral performances, I have never before
experienced anything as thrilling as your composition performed
by 325 girls. It moved me to tears of absolute joy and
exhiliration. Both the composition and the way it was performed
were mind boggling. Thank you for your major contribution to a
wonderful experience!"
-Harold
Fardal
""To the New Millenium" is a joyous addition to
the choral literature."
-Janelle Gelfand, The
Cincinnati Enquirer
"Chen Yi's Landscape, receiving its
world premiere, was a brief, diamond-clear evocation of a
landscape, complete with sonic equivalents of clouds, raindrops,
a lake, even hills."
-Paul Horsley, The
Kansas City Star
"Chen Yi's "Landscapes," receiving its world
premiere, was a brief, diamond-clear evocation of a landscape,
complete with sonic equivalents of clouds, raindrops, a lake,
even hills."
-Paul Horsley, KC
Star
"Chen Yi's music captures the polyphony of two
cultures. In her latest recording, Sparkle, we hear
the exhilirating tension, self-introspection and thrilling
juxtaposition produced when an artist grapples with the
superimposition of two distinct worlds…The CD further
confirms that Chen Yi is one of the most exciting and talented
composers working today."
-Eleanora Beck, IAWM
Journal
"Chen Yi's Sparkle woke us from the
reverie. The title says it all: this 1992 tour de force is a
kaleidoscope of bright, metallic color, tightly structured and
always demanding utmost virtuosity. With good reason it is her
most popular piece."
-Paul Horsley, The
Kansas City Star
"Impressive, too, was Chen Yi's
Sparkle, an aptly named piece of brilliance
featuring slow steps in high trills from combinations of piano,
marimba, vibraphone and piccolo, with always interesting
backgrounds…the piece had a distinct, thrilling
identity."
-Paul Griffiths, The
New York Times
"The evening's high point, surely, was Chen Yi's
Sparkle. Pulsating with restless energy, the music
dashes, buzzes, soars like so many flights of the bumblebee. It
catches its breath now and then -- with respites of fragmented,
sinuous Chinese folk melodies -- only to be shaken and exhorted
to race again by loud whacks on the drum. No other piece on the
program approaches it in originality."
-Ted Shen, Chicago
Tribune
"Momentum (1999) [is] a powerful
score that crackled with motion and energy."
-Mary Ellyn Hutton,
Cincinnati Post
"…13 minutes of very effective
orchestration…in a style very much Chen's own, with its
characteristic opposition of very high violins and very low
percussion."
-David Hurwitz,
ClassicsToday.com
"That left the opening selection, Chen Yi's
Momentum as the most rewarding part of the concert at the
San Jose Center for the Performing Arts…a brilliant and
appealing new work."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"…supercharged, smartly
crafted…"
-Lawrence B. Johnson,
The Detroit News
"…the best music is the lyrical middle
section where delicately ornamented tunes mimic traditional
pentatonic melodies."
-Mark Lehman,
American Record Guide
"Ge Xu (Antiphony) is richly affirmative,
a feeling that is difficult to convey without sounding facile or
simple minded. The music is Chen Yi's own, but there shines
through it a spirit that Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, and Dvorak would
recognize immediately, and they would smile the way the rest of
us did."
-Richard Dyer, The
Boston Globe
"The Romance portion of the work is
languid and ethereal. The more vigorous Dance takes
melodies commonly found in Beijing opera and casts them into a
cauldron of nervous tremolos and pulsating repeated
gestures."
-Joseph Sargent, San
Francisco Classical Voice
"…sweetly lyrical but never
cloying…"
-David Hurwitz,
ClassicsToday.com
|
Shuo for String Orchestra
|
"Ms. Chen, one of several Chinese composers who
have had an important impact on the new-music scene in recent
years, contributed Shuo (1994), a cheerful, pretty
and rhythmically vital work that quotes and transforms folk
melodies from her homeland."
-The New York
Times
"…fearless melodic beauty…"
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"…rugged and earthy...It proves that good
music can be scored for the most unusual instruments in a
charming, rhythmically complex work."
-Delonda Hartmann,
Muncie Star Press
"Chen used Cantonese music elements in the first
movement "Lion Dance." In the second movement "Yangko," she
brought us beautiful scenery of rural village through a
pentatonic melody and Yangko drumbeat as the background. In the
third movement "Mugam," [sic] she applied Xinjiang fold tune. The
cheerful and enthusiastic mood led the music to the climax of the
whole piece."
-Song Xuejun (trans.
Wang Xiaoxi), Central Conservatory of
Music/en.ccom.edu.cn
"…its earthy, vigorous outer movements
project a passionate strength."
-David Hurwitz,
ClassicsToday.com
|
TU for Orchestra
|
"Dedicated to the New York City firefighters in
the September 11 tragedy, her piece proved a powerfully,
impassioned outcry."
-John Rockwell, The
New York Times
"…a fierce 14-minute outcry. Written as
both a howl of pain in response to the attacks of September 11,
2001, and a tribute to the New York firefighters who lost their
lives, "Tu" takes off with a crash and rarely flags in its
unbridled energy."
-Joshua Kosman, San
Francisco Chronicle
"[a] dark and angry work, dedicated to the New
York firefighters who died on 9/11..Chen's emotional directness
and lack of pretense is very refreshing."
-David Hurwitz,
ClassicsToday.com
"…an extrovert energy, a keen ear for
instrumental color and a fusion (or hybridization) of disparate
styles that is both distinctive and assured."
-Larry Fuchsberg,
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"…her affection for [Chinese folk music]
forms combines with darker memories of Mao’s oppressive
government. The clash resonates throughout the work, finding a
sense of calm individuality only in the solo cello…"
-Rob Hubbard, St.
Paul Pioneer Press
"… canny use of instrumental color…
Part of Ms. Chen's success may come from approaching the
orchestra with a fresh perspective: she works capably within its
vocabulary, but brings in enough of a foreign accent -- and not
only in the pentatonic Chinese-isms -- to reanimate the language
with a sense of wonder."
-Anne Midgette, The
New York Times
Page last updated November 12, 2009
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