Dialogue 对话

Instrumentation: Pipa and Western Ensemble (Fl & Picc, Ob, Cl in Bb & Eb, Bsn, Hn, 2 Tpt, Trb, Perc, Vln, Vle, Vc, Cb)

Duration: 14 minutes

Program Note:

There are countless of conversations and interactions occur between human, culture and even soul or spirit that makes lives being meaningful and sparkling all the time. In “Dialogue”, the composer tends to create a dialogue and exchange between these two different musical languages and aesthetic world. The music is more likely a throughout-composed musical structure, starts with a freely section in displaying the eastern distinctive elegant style which involves the long expressive melodic line with pointillistic texture. After the cadenza solo section, the music developed based on western idea in employing different kinds of textures with different pulses and meters between every ensemble members to build up the expectation to reach a point of satisfaction. Reaching the climax point with the highly intense energy of high register, the music quickly resolved back to emptiness to create big contrast from the previous furious sections and ends the piece in a mysterious way. Born as Malaysian Chinese, I have exposed to many different cultures and philosophy ideas between the practice of traditional and contemporary in Eastern and Western world. As a whole, “Dialogue” is conveying my thought in searching my own position, aesthetic and value in this world that full of contrasts. 

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Awards:

Finalist for 2013 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, United States, 2013

Alternate Regional Winner in SCI/ ASCAP Student Composition Commission Contest, United States, 2013