T hinking about what we could do to share different cultures in our new society, I have been composing music seriously to achieve my goal of improving the understanding between peoples from various backgrounds. My conceptions have often come from ancient Chinese poetry. There are musical traits directly reminiscent of ancient China: sensitive melodies, expressive glissandi in various statements, and, in particular, a peculiarly Chinese undercurrent of tranquility and meditation. The cross-fertilization of color, material, and technique, and on a deeper level, cultural heritage, makes for challenging work. But there is more than this... more than reminiscence.”T he members of UMKC Wind Ensemble and Choir gave a nice performance last night at White Recital Hall (Steven Davis and Joseph Parisi conducting). The program included:
— Zhou Long.
- Chen Yi: Fanfare [premiere]
- Zhou Long: The Future of Fire (for orchestra and choir; new transcription) [premiere]
- Paul Rudy & Bobby Watson: Finally... (Bobby Watson, saxophone) [premiere]
- James Mobberley: Words of Love (Rebecca Sherburn, soprano)
- Alban Berg: Kammerkonzert (Benny Kim, violin; Robert Weirich, piano)
P reviously, Zhou’s ‘Future of Fire’ was scored for orchestra and children’s choir—with the timbres and social implications that children singing to a predominantly adult audience can have. It has been performed, though, by adult choirs as well, including Chanticleer.
[50-sec clip, Chanticleer, Zhou Long, ‘Words of the Sun’, 1.2MB MP3]
[50-sec clip, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Zhou Long, ‘Future of Fire’, 1.2MB MP3]
I n his new transcription, the orchestra is smaller, with textures that are more ‘chamber-like’. The 11 female voices were positioned on the left side of the stage, and the 7 men were on the right. The new transcription has the genders trading volleys—some of them lilting and lyrical, others punchy, punctate. There are no ‘extra’ notes, but there is an intense urgency ... a feeling of up-to-the-last-moment ‘indeterminacy’, about which notes the women’s parts will take next, and which notes will form the men’s parts’ response.
S o, ‘Notes Uncle’, which note? 五声阿叔, 孰徵? [wǔ-shēng-à-shú, shú-zhǐ?]
I was reminded of the infamous YouTube video about ‘Bus Uncle’ [巴士阿叔, bā-shì-à-shú].
T he stream-of-consciousness mode that characterizes much of Zhou’s writing is present in ‘Future of Fire’, but now with a more assertive ‘mash-up’ quality and extemporaneity than it had in the children’s choir version. The volleys of disconnected gestures between the voices, the sound masses where vocal parts are doubled by instruments (women by woodwinds; men by brass)—these are clearly of Chinese origin and they are pure Zhou. But last night in the premiere of the new transcription, the atmospherics expressed (in Zhou’s abstract, modernist manner)... the future, not so much of Fire per se, but of Everything... The future of our world and our relationships with each other and with Authority.
F ire might, I think, be Zhou’s place-holder for ‘technology’ and our evolving array of social practices involving technology. In Web 2.0 social networking, what personal information may today be disclosed without the individual’s consent? 究竟在網絡這個「新世界」中，甚麼資訊是可以透露？
U nder what conditions or circumstances may it be disclosed? 在甚麼條件／情況下透露？
W hat musical expressions are strictly intimate, private, chamber-music-like, such that others have no right to mess with it or interfere with it? 又有甚麼資訊是嚴格屬於私人保有，別人無權干涉的呢？
T hese issues, to me, are what the new transcription of Zhou’s ‘Future of Fire’ assays. Truly wonderful, both in its beauty and in its political/social statement!
I , the singer of painful and joyous songs, the uniter
of this life and the next,
Receiving all silent signs, using them all,
but then, leaping across them at full speed,
Sing of the Past.
[Borne hither, ere all eludes me—hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves—
I—chanter of pains and joys, uniter
of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them,
but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.]”
— Lucy Zhao, tr. of Walt Whitman ‘Leaves of Grass: Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking’; Peter Hessler, English back-translation from Zhao, in ‘Oracle Bones’, p. 458 ; [Whitman original].
- Zhou Long page at UMKC Conservatory
- Zhou Long page at Composers21.com
- Chanticleer. Zhou Long: Words of the Sun - Colors of Love. (Teldec, 1999.)
- Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Zhou Long: Rhymes. (Bis, 2004.) [Future of Fire]
- Everett Y, Lau F, eds. Locating East Asia in Western Art Music. Wesleyan, 2004. [Zhou on pp. 24-34, 66]
- Hessler P. Oracle Bones. Harper, 2007.
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