MOTHER’S SONGS 春江花月夜, FOR VIOLA AND PIPA (2020)
Lei Liang

MOTHER’S SONGS 春江花月夜, FOR VIOLA AND PIPA (2020)

World Première (Commissioned by Rockport Music)

Lei Liang
(b. Tianjin, China, November 28, 1972)

Composed 2020; c12 minutes

Photo by Alex Matthews Both Eastern and Western cultures have influenced Lei Liang’s many compositions. He continues to make a deep study of Chinese traditions and draw from them in his creative work. Yet, Liang also retains artistic independence, finding similar value in musical traditions from all cultures, often fusing them in a probing, philosophically driven way. “Chinese culture is my source of inspiration but does not define me as a ’Chinese’ composer,” Liang says. “I remain an individual and a composer from China.”

LEI LIANG: A TIMELINE

1972 Born to musicologist parents: father (opera), mother (American music) in Tianjin, China

1978 Earliest compositions, piano lessons

1985 One of the 12-year-old Liang’s compositions is chosen as a mandatory piece for the Xinghai National Piano Music Competition

1989 Two months of protesting in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations was,
Liang says, “a life-changing experience. I feel like everything I do today is
motivated by that experience, by those two months.” 

1992-8 BMus and MMus at New England Conservatory 

2000 Honorary Professor, Wuhan Conservatory

2001-6 Junior Fellow and PhD at Harvard. Composition studies with Birtwistle,
Czernowin, Davidovsky, Fineberg, Gyger, Lindberg and Rands 

2004 on Distinguished Visiting Professor at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an 

2006 Becomes a US citizen

2007 on Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego, currently
Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Music 

2009-10 Many composition prizes and Guggenheim Fellowship

2011-12 Elliott Carter Rome Prize

  • Follows the family tradition of musicology: research, field recordings, remastering of historical recordings preserving traditional music from Asia.
  • Publishes 30+ articles about his research in China, South Korea and the USA
  • Edits or co-edits 5 books 
  • Catalog of 100+ original compositions is published internationally by Schott

2013-16 Composer-in-Residence at the Qualcomm Institute, more recently Artist-in-Residence, preserving and reimagining culture through his multimedia works

2015 Saxophone concerto Xiaoxiang named a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize

2018 Senior positions at Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou

2020 Biography and essays about Lei Liang published by Shanghai University

2021 Receives the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for his orchestral work A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams 

  • Lei Liang’s recent works address issues of sex trafficking across the US-Mexican border (Cuatro Corridos), America’s complex relationship with gun and violence (Inheritance), and environmental awareness through the sonification of coral reefs.

A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams, is inspired by a landscape painting by the Chinese ink-brush master Huang Binhong (1865-1955). “The piece meditates on the loss of landscapes of cultural and spiritual dimensions,” Liang says. “The work implies an intention to preserve and resurrect parallel landscapes—both spiritual and physical—and sustain a place where we and our children can belong.”Mother’s Songs – Note from the composer:

Mother’s Songs for viola and pipa was written in response to the songs sung by my teacher, the eminent Mongolian scholar Wulalji, who taught me since my childhood. During my visits to China in 2019, Professor Wulalji sang several songs that his mother, Jijig (1912-2005), the great singer from the Horchin Prairie, had taught him when he was a child.”

“These songs are of a traveler’s longing for home and a daughter’s desire to be reunited with her mother. At age 83, my teacher is the only one in Inner Mongolia who still remembers these ancient melodies, and he sang them with great emotion.” 

“I, too, am away from home. My teacher’s singing evoked a strong sense of longing even as it offered profound solace. In this piece, I hope to share with the audience, the gift of these moving songs.”

Lei Liang