Concert III
Friday, March 1, 2024 at 5:30 p.m.
HMC 110 - Orchestra Room
Natalie L. Haslam Music Center
PROGRAM
MUTED
Eunmi Ko
Eunmi Ko, piano
me - ah - ri
Grace Ann Lee
approaching somber waves
Chen-Hui Jen
Reflections
Anruo Cheng
- Dragon Lotus
- Ni Hao
- My Dear Absent Voice
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MUTED
Asians lack presence. Asians take up apologetic space. We don’t even have enough presence to be considered real minorities. We’re not racial enough to be token. We’re so post-racial we’re silicon. – Cathy Park Hong, from Minor Feelings
I moved to the United States in 2004. Since then, I have transitioned from a graduate student to a professional performer and faculty member at a university. Although I went through different phases in life, I have always been seen as an Asian woman. What American society sees in me has not changed. I was a stereotypical Asian woman, and I am a stereotypical Asian woman – subdued and demure, in other words, “muted.” I am a muted person without vivid colors. Naturally, a muted person’s voice wouldn’t be heard. My voice is muted.
The muted piano sound is not a representation of traditional piano sound. Piano has been compared with an orchestra. Piano offers virtuosity, brilliance, sensitivity, seven-octave ranges, rich colors, thick and massive chords, and multiple voices. Muffled (muted) sound was not associated with the characteristics of a piano. However, muting strings turns the piano into a different animal. Piano becomes a percussion instrument, and, at the same time, it becomes a string instrument. It generates harmonics. It produces timbres that mimic percussion. The mix of muted and unmuted sounds gives a stark contrast and even whimsy. Playing inside of the piano does not make immense volume. Muted notes will be soft, just like my own voice.
I want to explore the muted piano sound. I want to express myself as a performer and person through muted notes that are quiet, muffled, and unbrilliant.
MUTED was supported by New Music USA’s Creator Fund with support in part from the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Cheswatyr Foundation, The ASCAP Foundation Bart Howard Fund, and the BMI Foundation. Support for New York-based artists is provided by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and/or the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Support for the Creator Fund is also provided by contributions from the New Music USA endowment. - Eunmi Ko
approaching somber waves
The work’s title reflects a state of drifting, gradually towards the gloaming and also represents my intimate interpretation of being internally solitary. This work, approaching somber waves, carries a continuous poetic flow between a few of my recent works in which I convey a longing for peaceful, reclusive life, and almost like a solo prelude of my following project Meandering on a cypress boat, a choral work based on the Book of Songs, about voiceless sorrow.
Thinking about this solo piano work, I found some metaphorical resonance with one of the Lute (Qín) Songs by Han Yü (768-824):
Song of Returning
Approaching the dark autumn water
Where my boat drifts towards, but never reaches
Through light waters, the pebbles roll into my feet
In deep waters, the dragon intrudes into my boat
I feel repentant and wander my way
Let’s return! Avoid fighting against the pebbles; don’t compromise with the dragon.
In the work, I largely explored the piano harmonics, timbral lines, and performance choreography, to convey a personal, profound, and internal musical expression. Distinct from the lush, pianistic multi-layered texture in my recent other piano works, I intended to expand the piano musical language and correspond to the lyricism in the Lute Song, through a maximized “almost-mostly monophonic” texture. The work was commissioned by and written for the pianist Eunmi Ko. - Chen-Hui Jen
me - ah - ri
The word “me-ah-ri” means echo in Korean. As the commission called for the muted piano sound, I wanted to explore the quiet notes in the piano that are resonant and muffled, almost like the sound of an “echo.” The first section explores the muted sound of the piano that introduces the large space and the peace and calm, which later explodes and frees into a “Jangdan”, a rhythmic form repeated with a percussion instrument such as a Janggu in Korean Traditional music. The piano is used as both the percussion and the fun melodic line.
Reflection
"Reflection" is a piano suite with three movements dedicated to pianist Eunmi Ko and the "Muted" project. It explores the intricate relationship between Asian females and the Western world, touching on stereotypes, cultural differences in politeness, self-awareness of societal unfairness, and the challenges faced by individual Asian women when asserting their voices in the face of impolite or unjust treatment.
1. Dragon Lotus
Asian female characters in American media and pop culture frequently face racist stereotypes, typically fitting into the lotus blossom or dragon lady archetypes. These stereotypes often manifest in real life, where Asian women are perceived as submissive and voiceless like the lotus blossom, or as powerful, exotic, cunning, and sexual like the dragon lady. Yet, simplistic labels cannot capture the profound complexity, diversity, and beauty of these souls. Just like women of other ethnicities, they may be dragons, they may be lotus blossoms, or neither, or both.
2. Ni Hao
Asian women often find themselves greeted with "Ni Hao" (“Hello” in Chinese Mandarin) by strangers upon their initial encounters. While some may interpret this gesture as a display of kindness, many others consider it offensive. It can be seen as impolite and ignorant, as it assumes that all Asians speak Mandarin. In many Asian countries, knocking on a bowl is considered a cultural taboo. What if knocking on a bowl during a concert, even with a piano accompaniment? Is it still inappropriate? This movement explores the line between politeness and impoliteness in encounters with cultural differences.
3. My Dear Absent Voice
Sometimes, I find it challenging to make my voice heard in the face of injustice. This difficulty can be attributed to various factors, including my conservative cultural background, strict family upbringing, or societal neglect within Western contexts. It may take the form of active suppression, passive dismissal, or a combination of both, making it a complex topic. The purpose of this movement is to portray the obstruction and stifling of self-expression as an Asian woman in Western society.
The text in this movement: Frequencies oscillate in unseen waves, Interpret the whispers of absence. Oh here comes the Queen! Queen of silence, your muted throne echoes my heartbeat. Quiet, you are speaking the language of the unheard, unspoken, unseen, unclaimed, unfamiliar, unexplored, unnoticed! A coda of “la la la,” a silent plea, accompanied by the absence of voice. The voice of a pianist, The voice of a composer, The voice of a woman, who happens to be an Asian Can be heard?
Hailed as “exceedingly interesting” (New York Concert Review) and “kaleidoscopic” (San Francisco Classical Voice), pianist Eunmi Ko concertizes as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. As a sought-after collaborator and champion of new music, she works with contemporary composers, ensembles, and performers from around the world.
Ko is the co-founder and President of the Contemporary Art Music Project (CAMP). She teaches at the University of South Florida as Associate Professor of Piano. Her past positions include co-advisor of USF New Music Consortium (2016-2021), artist faculty on the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival (2013-2018), and the assistant director of the Women in Music Festival at Eastman (2011).
Ko holds graduate degrees (MM and DMA) from the Eastman School of Music. She may also be heard on the recently published CD release of solo and chamber music. Follow her on YouTube and iTunes.
Chen-Hui Jen is a composer, poet, and pianist, whose music presents an imaginative, spiritual, and poetic space with subtlety and sophistication. She writes concert music for diverse instrumentation, including orchestra, chorus, solo and chamber music for western and Asian instruments, as well as electronics. Chen-Hui Jen’s musical works reflect an angle of contemporary art music and often evoke a captivating atmosphere that integrates time, sound, color, and poetry. She earned a Ph.D. degree in music at the University of California, San Diego, and currently serves at the Florida International University as a part time faculty and as the pianist in the FIU NODUS New Music Ensemble.
Chen-Hui Jen’s music works have been performed at multiple prestigious new music festivals and concerts, including the ISCM World Music Days, SEAMUS, ICMC, Visiones Sonoras, Acanthes Music Festival, ACL Music Festival, EarShot San Diego, ISCM New Music Miami Season, People Inside Electronics series, Taipei International New Music Festival, WOCMAT, and Taiwan Contemporary Sizhu Music Festival. She has also received commissions by multiple ensembles including the League of American Orchestras Women Composers’ Reading and Commission Project, Ensemble 20° dans le Noir, Aurora Borealis Duo, Accordant Commons, Astralis Duo, The Living Earth Show, Palimpsest Ensemble, Ensemble ISCM-Taiwan, Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Taipei Chamber Singers, Müller Chamber Choir, Ching-Yun Chorus, and Kaohsiung Chamber Choir, as well as multiple grants from the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Taiwan National and Arts Foundation.
Chen-Hui Jen’s piano performances primarily focus on experimental new music and electroacoustic music. She has been performed at many distinguished venues, conferences, and festivals including the Spectrum in New York City, Center for New Music in San Francisco, Taipei National Recital Hall, Taiwan Chai Found 101 Auditorium, Miami Bakehouse Art Complex, Coral Gables Museum, Root Signal Festival, FETA Festival, as well as regular performances at the annual ISCM New Music Miami Season.
The music of composer Grace Ann Lee (b. 1996) is based on everyday sounds, imageries, and experiences like raindrops, refracting light, and traffic jams, recreated into dynamic and emotive soundscapes.
Driven by curiosity, Grace Ann composes music that is based on drama, highlighting appearances of playful rhythm and textural lyricism. A recipient of 2023 ASCAP Moron Gould Award, she collaborates with various ensembles including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Buffalo Chamber Players, Front Porch, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, and Nunc, among many others. She holds commissions from the Sound Mind/New World Symphony, United States Air Force Heritage of America Band, the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, and Michael Karsher’s Young New Yorkers’ Chorus. Lee has recently been selected as a composition fellow for the 2024 at Tanglewood Music Center and has previously been the composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program.
Originally from Seoul, South Korea, Grace Ann holds a BM from Indiana University, a MM from Rice University where she was a Brown Fellow, and is currently pursuing a DMA in Composition at the University of Michigan. Her teachers include Evan Chambers, Kristin Kuster, Erik Santos, Pierre Jalbert, Karim Al-Zand, Shi-Hui Chen, P.Q. Phan, David Dzubay, Aaron Travers, Sven-David Sandström, Claude Baker, Don Freund, and Stephen Shewan.
Grace Ann currently resides in Ann Arbor, MI.
Polish of Vietnamese descent composer and pianist, Ania Vu (née Vũ Đặng Minh Anh) writes music that explores the interplay between the sound properties of the words and their meanings, musical energy related to form, and varied notions of time. She also enjoys crafting her own text that serves as a sonic, formal, and expressive guiding reference in her musical writing process.
Her recent premiere of "small tenderness" at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music was described by the Boston Globe as an exhibition of "artful vocal writing [that] ranges from percussive whispers to glinting, pure-voiced lines that [...] blended elegantly into the roiling cauldron of strings." Ania has received recognition and fellowships from ASCAP, the American Opera Project, Copland House, Tanglewood, the Boston New Music Initiative, and the I-Park Foundation, and has been privileged to have worked with the New Fromm players, the Grossman Ensemble, DanceWorks Chicago, the Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE), the Daedalus and Mivos string quartets, Sō Percussion, the TAK Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, among others.
Ania was the 2022-23 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago's Center for Contemporary Composition and a 2021-23 composer fellow with the Composers & the Voice. She was a lecturer in composition at the University of Texas at Austin and is currently a lecturer at the University of Chicago. Ania received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.M. in composition and theory from the Eastman School of Music.
Together with pianist Eunmi Ko, they started an initiative called The Music She Writes, a series of four virtual concerts featuring 25 works by Asian female composers. This project aims to highlight the diversity and significance of music by a very large, yet underrepresented community.
Outside of music, Ania has a deep interest in languages, and speaks fluent English, Polish, French, and Vietnamese, in addition to having studied Latin, German, and Greek. She also enjoys traveling - having visited 30 countries so far -, wandering in all kinds of museums, and ballroom dancing.
Anruo Cheng, born in China, is a New York-based composer, educator, music producer, and electronic musician. Cheng is currently selected as an adjudicator for SEAMUS Conference and music technology specialist for VoxNovus' COMPOSER'S VOICE Concert Series. She was also a former composition lecturer at Frost School of Music, University of Miami, where she taught music theory, music analysis, and electronic music ensemble courses. Cheng holds a Doctoral degree in Music Composition and a Master's degree in Media Writing and production from the University of Miami.
Cheng studied composition with Charles Mason, Dorothy Hindman, Juraj Kojs, Melinda Wagner, and Christopher Theofanidis. And she studied film scoring and music production with Chris Boardman and Carlos Rafael Rivera.Her doctoral project focuses on data mining from non-musical material and application into the acoustic instrumental composition. The non-musical material is related to the sonification technique and astronomical data from NASA. ASPEN COMPOSER'S CONFERENCE recently invited her to give a presentation about her Doctoral research.
Cheng is a prize-winning composer whose works have been performed and released worldwide, for example, in the US, China, UK, and South Korea. She is also an electronic music performer who performed her music installation and electronic instrument work in various electronic music festivals. Her music fields vary, including contemporary acoustic music, electroacoustic music, electronic instruments/installations design, popular music, and film music. Cheng's most recent electroacoustic work "Moju" is selected to be performed at NYCEMF (New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival), 2023. Her interactive multi-media electronic instrument performance, "five-Elements," was featured at the N_SEME FESTIVAL Her composition "Is This you, for soprano, piano, and cello" won the AURAL COMPASS PROJECTS COMPETITION. Her solo flute piece, "Three Miniature Paintings," was selected by the NYC CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SYMPOSIUM CONCERT. Her composition, "Raise One More Toast" (for Chinese instrument Guqin, electronic, and Baritone), was performed by Andrew White at the FIFTEEN-MINUTES-OF-FAME concert. Additionally, many other works of hers were released by RMN Records, UK, and EMII Enterprise, US. Cheng's expertise lies in modern world music composition, sound design for electroacoustic music, music coding, contemporary music analysis, piano, and EDM production. Her recent single hip-hop song, "Triple Three," featured hip-hop artist Gee Smiff, which was released this year. Cheng's diverse musical background and cultural background are the creation sources that continually enable her to mix and match multiple genres and new ideas into her compositions.