Thank you for coming today.
This is round table discussion for this whole project.
There're so much we have experienced and we are still learning.
So, the first question is:
How did you explore and utilize the acoustic
and cultural similarities and differences
with the combination of Western
and Chinese instruments in this project?
Dorothy, why don't we start with you?
I listened to your individual interview and I found there are lots of things interesting you said.
I'm particularly interested in ''Lost and Found".
I think it's a very good point that you made that you said when somebody said when East meets west,
the sound or idea is lost in translation. And you said this is not about translation.
You are not trying to translate one language to another.
Instead, you are trying to create something new.
So I thought, ''That's a very good point.'' Maybe we could start from that.
I think that did influence my approach to the piece
in that I recognized that this is a brand new type of ensemble,
and yet each half of the ensemble is coming with its own tradition.
Of course I was completely trained in only one of the traditions, Western.
So in trying to combine the two,
I knew that I would be heavily influenced by what's natural to me, to my compositional voice.
And yet Chinese music is not completely unfamiliar to me
because my heritage is Chinese, and I heard some it while growing up.
But I am not trained in it. I don't have understanding of it. It is just a superficial sound.
So when I was writing, I was mostly trying to find a way of working
the sound of the Chinese instruments into my compositional voice,
and yet modifying my own music to allow room for these new instruments, new sounds, new sound world,
with the idea that two of them in combination would be something completely new for me.
So the idea of "Lost and Found", I suppose, is not so much Lost.
I think it's a negative way to put it "lost", "modify" it, perhaps. My music is modified a little bit.
Obviously not being trained in Chinese music,
my approach to using the instruments is non-traditional or ''my own'' approach,
but it was more exploring what could be created.
When I composing a piece of folk music, I tend to pay more attention to its melodic nature,
keeping this more easily acceptable feeling.
This piece is relatively traditional, but it is not the same as pure folk music.
Both its concept and its basic material belong to the melodic;
but its whole structural idea is more like a Western free variation form.
So, what the most important thing is in this piece is different from hers.
My primary concern is the general surface impression of melody,
with combining of emsembles obeying this main purpose.
That is, this emsemble combination is not why I seeked special sounds or specific effects for this piece.
Instead, I followed the subject of this creative work to find what I deemed to be suitable sounds,
Then, everything was done for and from this.
One thing I really like about this project is that all six composers had the same task,
and it was kind of unique task to write for this mixed ensemble.
So we would all come from our own background, our own place and our own musical style
to create a new piece, but for the same instrumentation.
So I feel this is almost a like a cooking show.
You are provided with the same ingredients. Just see what you can come out.
For me, I like the whole ensemble.
I chose to use all the instruments but I made a few choices,
thinking about how the Chinese and Western instruments would go together.
For example, because we have the Dizi (the Chinese flute), I decided to use, like, an alto flute and a bass clarinet
so that there was a different range from the three wind instruments put together:
a combination of, like, a high Chinese flute, a sort of mid-range Western flute, and a low bass clarinet
like a kind of new wind ensemble.
For me, I've been hearing quite a few pieces here in Vancouver
written by the composition community for different ensembles, cross-cultural ensembles.
But I hadn't actually composed that. So I have been wanting to do that for some time,
and I was pleased to actually have this opportunity to do it in a mixed ensemble.
In writing for the Chinese instruments, I wanted to work with the natural qualities
and even the scales of the instruments.
I tried not to treat them as instruments to do experimentation with, in terms of new techniques.
I try to use their natural scales. So for example, I used the traditional Sheng
which has less notes than the chromatic Sheng
With the Zheng I actually transformed the tuning,
but I used all the D's, and worked with some different scales in between.
Maybe because of that, there was like a common harmonic language between
the Western and Eastern instruments.
It was just something that came naturally out of, you know, I just tried to compose
with the natural qualities of the instruments.
This project, this composition, for the combination of two kinds of instruments, Chinese and Western,
with creaton being its point of departure, should a very first attempt.
And I've been interested in both Chinese and Western instruments,
and I have always been considering these issues.
When I was doing my master's degree, my research's main area was Western symphonic orchestra.
For my doctoral degree, the research was mainly on issues about Chinese orchestra.
So actually, I've always been thinking about the combination of Chinese and Western orchestra.
Last year a foundation Hong Kong in heard my CD "Symphonic Literarature of Three Kingdoms".
Afterwards, they contacted me.
They said they liked it very much and wanted to do something with it.
That piece was originally composed for Western Orchestra and some solo Chinese instruments,
such as Qin, Xiao, Shakuhachi, and so on.
They wanted to add a Chinese Orchestra and a Western orchestra, both together.
They asked me if I wanted to try and I said I was interested in re-orchestrating the piece.
However, that work was, afterall, a re-orchestration.
It was not originally considered for these instruments. There is a difference.
But this piece ought to combine two kinds of instruments.
From the beginning, I had to consider the relations between every instrument, and their combinations.
So when I was writing this piece
I did think a lot about Chinese and Western instruments, their functionality,
different combinations, tone colors; this is an area that I have an interested in.
Basically, my principle is, on the one hand,
when I use each instrument, to consider its functionality, its own language and style,
and on the other hand, whether or not its language can suitably, as much as possible, express my creative ideas.
I find it a really interesting discussion.
I wrestle with these similar ideas that I hear all of the composers talking about:
content of the musical materials,
understanding the way the musical instruments work, and thinking of style and culture.
As I was thinking about writing this piece
I once again wrestle with this idea and was trying to find what is the grain of all music.
I came up with the expression I've been saying ever since:
'music is sound in time and space and culture is the words used to describe it or that influence it".
So this is the reason I have trouble creating a narrative when I am writing for a mixed ensemble.
I have to leave the idea of thinking about style and culture out of my thinking.
So I start with a concern for the actual sound materials themselves,
and then how I am going to make it work with the instruments.
It's quite abstract, but it's very important.
as everyone has said, to really understand the acoustic and performance practice of all of the instruments,
the music I write doesn't create a story. I don't create a story.
But if the audience wants to create the story, they are free to do that.
And that's why I called the piece ''The Bridge'' but I did not add any more metaphors to that title.
It's the bridge that anybody is listening can come and hear the music, and can see whatever scenery they want.
The question I want to ask is also about sound.
Of course there are many exceptions, but generally,
Chinese composers tend to write something big and symphonic,
while, relatively speaking, many chamber pieces of the West are smaller.
They highlight more the individual instruments, and each individual sound.
In terms of the amount of sound, its combination, harmonization and so on,
they all seems to be narrower than China's.
In general, - this is a very generalized question - Chinese composers tend to write something big
as if they are thinking from a symphonic point of view.
In contrast, Canadian composers have more compositions written in chamber music kind of approach:
individual instrument and individual sound, not very much a big sound, but small detailed elegant sound.
I just wonder if there's a reason behind that, and how do you feel about that.
This is a very interesting topic.
In my opinion - let's go a bit further -
nowadays in the music education in the world - what composers study in universities pedagoically -
more emphasize is on chamber music (let's call it a Chamber Quality; it's not necessarily Chamber Music)
and Exploration Quality.
This is a focus for both teachers and students, and very important to development of scholarship.
We are like that too. In the Music Academy, I personally agree with this very much.
I also, in my teachings to my students, persist in doing this.
I must emphasize, I was not referring to Chamber Music in the academy.
Rather, it was the Chamber Quality of compositions.
This, as a scholar and composer, is the very important attitude of being responsible for scholarship.
As a composer, especially in China, there is another layer of meaning to this. That applies to myself also.
To be responsibile, not only to scholarship, but also to society, history, culture, and more.
That means my creative work sometimes is very scholarly, and sometimes very social.
Both exist. Sometimes this way, sometimes that way. Sometime it is easier-listening for common folks, sometime it is not easy.
This time, I chose this subject, for this project, like this: I like very much that poem, its kind of story,
The plot provided is sometimes weak, sometimes strong, and I did it according to how such details developed.
So this piece is program music. It is not abstract.
If, in some of its moments, the piece becomes bigger and stronger,
it is not because of my artistic pursuit. Instead, it is what the piece requires.
My compositions actually range from big orchestral to chamber types.
Not every composition of mine emphasize its symphonic quality. Each piece has its own character.
This piece, because its contents involve war and some horrifying scenes, do have this kind of sound.
Sounds like grand working in the same way:
big projects, big public objects for orchestra or opera or chamber music, more experimental and ...
The question I have is: Can the instruments work well together as a large emsemble,
as Dr. Wang did in Hong Kong,
or it's more appropriate to keep them in a smaller setting?
That's an interesting question. I mean you might have more balance issues
perhaps in the sort of mega orchestra combining Chinese and Western instruments,
but even the Chinese instruments have quite different dynamics, like the Suona:
it's quite loud, but the more you mix, maybe the more problems with balance you might find.
Indeed, if the two types of instruments are put together, many problems can occur. However,
that piece I just mentioned is re-orchestrated, not originally written for such a combination.
If you compose music specifically for these two types of instruments, you must consider for each instrument -
bowed strings, plucked strings, Western brass and woodwinds - some suitably playable material.
You can't add the violins and Erhu together. That'll sound terrible
Yes, there are many problems to be carefully considered
Usually linear material can be divided up for the violins into different groups or in octaves.
To put Erhu in such an arrangement is very difficult because high part of Erhu's range is very bad.
Tone color, blending, and also intonation will be problematic.
In this chamber piece, I experimented in some sections.
Violin, viola and Erhu, Gaohu together play a few fragments of four part harmony towards the end.
Concerning the balance problem that Prof. Owen mentioned:
according to the teachings of Western music, we all need be particular about balance in orchestration.
However, by getting away from this paradigm, we realize that
the balance between different instruments is meant to achieve good musical results:
There is a method of dealing with balance achieved NOT by performing balancing acts.
Because Suona is not easy to be balanced with, we do not require it to balance.
Instead, we highlight some of its qualities to achieve the same effect.
I can give some examples to illustrate this idea.
Something now like bass clarinet, also very noisy; it does not require balance.
this is unlike the concept of balance in Classical Music, in achieving good musical creations.
It's possible that in a larger ensemble the differences might be more manageable because you can add and subtract.
The B. C. Chinese Music Association commissioned a piece from me for the ensemble
and so they were all Chinese instruments. For the wind part, I had ZhongXi play the Guanzi and Suona.
And I thought, well, Suona is an (a bit) out-of-control oboe; it's quite loud.
And the Guanzi is like a chalumeau clarinet.
So I wrote my piece, and I tried to just write a piece in my normal way.
As a Western composer, you are used to this Industrial Revolution product
of these instruments that has been forged to create, as much as possible,
equal balance of volume, and as much timbral continuity (even though the natural tube is still there)
to create as much evenness along the whole range as possible.
I discovered that it was essentially, in a chamber music context, impossible for me as a composer
to incorporate those two wind instruments - Suona and Guanzi.
After the premiere, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra wanted to perform the work
and asked me if I wanted to make any adjustments.
So I replaced those two instruments with clarinet, and then the piece worked perfectly.
So, there are some ingrained things that we have: we have a training, and this training comes out in these situations
where you discovered - despite best intensions - you can't quite make it work.
I'm wondering if part of the reason for Canadian compositons being more chambers is that the Chinese instruments are new to us.
It's like getting a new toy where you want to feature that toy (I have a two year old daughter, so I'm thinking of toys),
but it's something new and you want to bring out that feature. You want to highlight it
because it's unique, I think, at least, to our work, even in combination with Western instruments.
It's not that we don't favor the Western instruments (I guess I should speak for myself),
but I do find that (looking in my piece) when I do have solo lines,
or something that I wanted to be the focus of the composition, I was drawn to using the Chinese instruments.
I thought it was a terrific opportunity
The mixing of the instruments was kind of liberating, in a way. It was more interesting
than just writing for an ensemble of only Chinese instruments
(although I'd be delighted to do that as well).
It was: just because it was a new ensemble, it was a new opportunity
As for what I gained from it, I'd like to say,
I appreciate very much the opportunity to have workshops and the reading sessions
because, particularly with the Chinese instruments, when I heard the playing,
then I could make adjustments. But overall, I learned that the ensemble could work very well together,
and that I could write music I wanted to write within this rather unusually mixed ensemble.
I'm looking forward to the concert today to hear all the six pieces together all at once.
I appreciate very much the opportunity to have Dr. Tang and Dr. Wang here.
It would be interesting, to me, to actually see how this concert would be like in China,
or what it would be like, and how would it be received somewhere else
also because I think there's also an opportunity, beyond us and the musicians,
to see how this experiment (if you like) translates for audience in different places.
I think this project is both very interesting and very meaningful.
What is interesting is that the commissions were specifically for such a mixed chamber ensemble,
so your goal is very specifics; that is, to combine the two kinds of instruments.
What is meaningful is that maybe these two kinds of instrument, after 100, 200, or 300 years,
will become members of a recombined and new kind of orchestra.
At this point, it's hard to predict.
In the overture of my ''Three Kingdom'' piece, I mainly used brass and percussion.
Originally, I added a Suona section. I wanted to put Western brass instruments and Chinese Suona together
as an experiment to see whether there would be something interesting to be explored.
That section had three Suona parts, all together.
It was three parts of Suona, not three Suonas. In each part there could be 2 or 3 Suona.
However, just like the question we have discussed, the languages of these two types of instruments are different,
so you need write differently for them.
They are not sounding the same chord, not matching loudness or tone color for balance.
It's actually very hard to do that.
It's interesting that he tells that story because
I actually had a flash on exactly that combination about four minutes ago.
And it is in the idea of, you know.
After the Second World War, the New International Music style, as it was actually called,
pushed the instrumentalists to make as many different sounds as they could.
It was the sign of the times, I guess, experimentation.
Science was very popular.
The notion of expanding the sound resources of instruments was very important, and written into a lot of new scores
Especially in Europe, musicians learned to scratch, bang, prepare, alter and so on,
to make new sounds - always looking for new sounds.
But it seems to me that if we can combine these two orchestras,
then we have a whole new sound resource that can start with fundamental notions of combining colors:
blending them, contrasting them and so on.
So it's actually a huge new resource that would allow us to increase the sound resources even further.
To Canadian composers, my question is: when you compose for non-Western instruments,
how to borrow an instrument from a culture,
at the same time, respect the culture itself?
Is symbolic combination of cultures, among composers, musician and even state policies in China, like multiculturalism in Canada?
In my opinion, if we look at this question historically
Chinese culture during those most prosperous dynasties were all open, taking in many foreign cultures.
For example, the only instrument in Chinese orchestra that grew out of its own culture is probably Guqin.
Other instruments, such as Dizi and Erhu, all came from regions to the west or north of China.
None of those were native to China's own nation, own cultural. They were all from the outside.
Therefore, it had a very tolerant and open history in its past.
However, after absorbing many outside cultures, it has a digestive process that resulted in something of its own.
It has this digestive-regenerative process, in which what are your do not remind yours,
nor what is mine remind mine, nor what is theirs remind theirs,
nor what are of individuals remain individual. Not like that. In the end, all became one.
And this is how I feel about this question.
Nowadays ''Eastern and Western culture'' has become a common topic.
Actually, the original four great civilizations, of India, Egypt, Greece and China,
becoming this kind of East and West, and China a very important circle of attraction.
It has this great cultural attraction power.
Although historically there were four cultural origins,
China now seems to have become the only attraction circle of the East, like the North and South Poles.
So just as Dr. Wang said, from history to now, whatever arrive here, they all become something of China's own.
For the Chinese people, regardless of the government promotes,
from the historical past to now, it has always been that foreign things all become Chinese.
''Make foreign things serve China''. It's always like that.
This phenomonen is an example of history shaping a nation's character. Even the Communist Party now,
and Chairman Mao's ''Make foreign things serve China'' are formed under the influence of this national character.
It is not simply a matter of politics of a particular time, but a matter of history and national character.
Therefore, I think this is what forms the characteristic of China culturally.
Therefore, for China, the world's interminglings is not the same as what it is for Canada.
China, in studying Western things, always considers how to shape its own culture.
For example, as a Han Chinese, as I write music of Mongolian ethnicity, I still consider it Chinese Music.
However, I think it's different in Canada, where diverse cultures coexist
These days, I find Vancouver very colorful; each house is of a different color and has a very cute image.
Therefore, multiple cultures co-exist here. Perhaps the ultimate purpose is also to form its own cultural distinction,
but this process takes a look time, where many ethnicities co-exist, gradually producing something unique, of its own.
That is, it can say, I am not entirely representable by Western Culture, but Canadian Music instead.
Can I speak to that issue? I think it's certainly
there's a historical precedence from the whole period of nationalism and nation-building,
and that the notion of cultural property is certainly a really interesting topic.
In the end, perhaps it's one of the reasons why I come back to the actually personal story.
I think something that is typical of North American is that, in the end, it comes down to somebody's personal story of
'why are you here ?'' because, except for the aboriginal people,
It's a continent of immigrants.
If I can say, I think majority of the Canadians do not have a desire to build a single monoculture.
It's quite the opposite.
So the interesting question for people who are interested in being part of this new culture
is to, as you had said before, to respect the Other,
but at the same time, the Other is also a person now thrown into a new multicultural situation.
So, the Persian Tar player also plays in a fusion band.
So, it's a unique new culture.
I think there is a difference between the political policy around multiculturalism
and the collaboration of the artists on the ground in working together.
Politically I would agree with John's comments and Dr. Tang's observations about Vancouver.
Of course, we should mention the First Nations or aboriginal people.
There is always this important issue, around the culture of Canada:
what is the relationship between First Nations' people and all of the others of us that came later?
I do think politically Canada has respect for the many different cultures,
but I think it's actually more interesting what is happening on the ground (if you like) in a city like Vancouver,
where we have (now and over the last 20 years) had a lot of very fine musicians
(let's say if we're talking about music) who have come here from all parts of Asia,
and from all Africa, and many other places.
What have come out of that is all kinds of different ensembles or different opportunities
I think, in some ways, Vancouver is a little more experimental in that respect
just in terms of musicians and composers and ensembles working together,
And that is quite apart from multicultural policy.
It's like artistic experimentation.
So for me, the piece I composed was actually inspired by Chinese calligraphy from around 1120,
but I didn't try to create a "multicultural piece".
I did try to respect the sounds of the instruments and the performers of those instruments
and to learn something about that, and let that guide me (a little bit) where I would go.
But I think it's kind of interesting to see how each person might find their own way
within this new global artistic world,
which is very strong here in the city of Vancouver.
I guess I'll speak more to a personal side because I, reflecting on what John just said is that
as a composer, a lot of or all of what you write depends heavily on your own experience, your own interests, and
your own identity is a musician
I thought a lot about culture and identity in my music because I was born to Chinese parents,
raised in the US, but lived in Taiwan and moved to Canada
and all my training is European
What does that mean as a composer and influences and culture?
It's something that I still don't know.
I know definitely: having all my musical education be Western, I always felt there was something lacking,
or something incongruent, about my cultural identity and my musical identity,
So I think for composers,
on top of the background, I have my own musical interests as well, where I actively go seek out certain experiences.
So I think for every composer, it's to find a balance between just recognizing who you are,
where you've been, and also, of course, whereever your interests lead you.
So every composer is going to come at this idea of multiculturalism in a different way:
some of them subconsciously, some of them very consciously and actively.
But we're right in that it very much does define, if not Canada, definitely Vancouver,
because we are just such a multicultural city.
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