Bamboo Song

SKU: PR.114409470

UPC: 680160014200. 8.5 x 11 inches.

The idea of Song in Winter came from the imagination of the pine and the bamboo. They are so persistent and dauntless. Standing in the frigid winter, they are evergreens. In Chinese paintings, they are featured characters; in Chinese literature, they are praised as symbols against evil influences and unhealty trends. Chen Yi admires their beautiful appearances and their strong spirit and expresses their feelings through their music, which combines Chinese and Western musical materials and medium. The silence between the gestures is like the space in brush painting and calligraphy.
Song in Winter is a trio written for harpsichord, dizi (bamboo flute) and zheng (Chinese zither).  My idea for this piece came from the pine and the bamboo.  Such persistent and dauntless trees!  Standing in the frigid winter, they are evergreens.  In Chinese paintings, they are the featured characters, while in Chinese literature, they are praised as symbols against evil influences and unhealthy trends.  I admire their beautiful appearances and their strong spirit.  I express my feelings through my music, which combines Chinese and Western musical materials and media.  Using the harpsichord, an old Western instrument, and the zheng and dizi, two old Chinese instruments, I mix keyboard, plucking and blowing instruments into a whole.  The silence between the gestures is like the space in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy.  Although I have been living in a western society for seven years, I have found my thinking closely linked with Chinese arts.  I merged them into my musical language in the trio. Song in Winter was commissioned and inspired by Prof. Joyce Lindorff, the winner of the Pro Musicis Foundation's international competition, for her March 23, 1994 concert at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, sponsored by the Foundation.  It is dedicated to Ms. Lindorff and Ms. Susan Cheng, the founder and executive director of Music From China, who has been enthusiastically supporting Chinese new music in New York for many years.  The work has been recorded on the album “Sparkle: Chamber Music of Chen Yi” on CRI, released in New York in 1999. The trio has also been adapted for quartet: flute, zheng (Chinese zither), piano and percussion, for ALEA III, for the premiere concert in Feb. 4, 1994, in Boston.—Chen Yi(born in China, 1953).

SKU: LO.AC1208

ISBN 9780893283636.

Activate! is an all-you-need resource for the K-6 classroom teacher. Each jam-packed compilation includes: songs to help students discover their voices; opportunities to utilize classroom instruments, from the traditional to the creative; folk dances and other movement activities; and pencil-to-paper games and activities addressing a variety of music concepts. Lesson plans are provided and a CD with numerous complementary recordings is included in each book. You want more? Okay. The National Standards for Music Education are referenced and all student pages are reproducible!

SKU: PR.114419770

UPC: 680160683048.

Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, my two-movement trio Tibetan Tunes is written for the New Pacific Trio (Igor Veligan, violin, Nina Flyer, cello, and Sonia Leong, piano) and premiered at the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific on Jan. 27, 2007 in Stockton, California. The first movement is inspired by a Tibetan folk tune Du Mu played on a recorder Xiongling. The music presents the rich gestures of Du Mu (a name of a god in Tibetan Buddhism) in a serene mood. Dui Xie is a kind of Tibetan folk ensemble music with a same tune in the introduction and the coda, played with the plucking instrument Zhamunie, the bamboo flute and the fiddle Erhu, often performed with singing and tap dancing. The pitch materials of the second movement Dui Xie are drawn from the folk ensemble music and a lyrical Tibetan folk song Amaliehuo. The work is adapted for clarinet (in B-flat), cello and piano, under the request of clarinetist, Prof. Zhu Shuang of Hainan University, to be premiered in December 2019 in Hainan University, Haikou City, Hainan Province, China.

SKU: PR.11441684S

UPC: 680160625253. 9 x 12 inches.

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the ensemble Music From China commissioned Chen Yi for a new work, which became Three Dances from China South, scored for Chinese instruments. Its three descriptive movements (Lions Playing Ball, Bamboo Dance, Lusheng Dance) are each inspired by folk dances from the southeastern provinces of China.
My chamber ensemble work Three Dances From China South is commissioned by Music From China tocelebrate its 30th anniversary, and scored for Chinese traditional instruments dizi, erhu, pipa, and zheng.  The commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical CommissioningProgram, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.  The world premiere is given at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in New York City, on November 21, 2014.  My Three Dances From China South is dedicated to Susan Cheng, the founder and Executive Director of Music From China, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of MFC. There are three movements in my Three Dances From China South for dizi, erhu, pipa, and zheng.  Thematerial in the first movement Lions Playing Ball is drawn from a folk tune played in the accompanyingensemble for the folk dance under the same title in Chaozhou region in Guangdong province.  The image of the folk dance is vivid and entertaining.  The movement includes several variations on the theme.  The variation methods are inspired by the various rhythmic patterns used in the traditional ensemble playing.  The melodic material features a special mode with a tritone interval taken from the folk tune.  There are also lyrical sections with polyphonic layers in the variations.The music in the second movement is inspired by the folk Bamboo Dance, which is popular in Li minoritypeople from Hainan Island in the south.  The aged old folk dance is for ritual ceremony and harvest celebration in the history, in which there are pairs of people holding the ends of the long bamboo rods and clapping them loudly in stable pulse, for groups of dancers to dance between the bamboo shapes on the floor, in musical rhythms and ensemble patterns.  A musical motive with a jumping interval and articulation is used throughout the movement.The third movement is called Lusheng Dance.  I have witnessed the folk dance performance of the Dong minority people in Guangxi province in the 1980’s.  The exciting scene inspired me to imitate the large lusheng ensemble playing style in my ensemble of four Chinese instrumental musicians without using the sheng (a wind instrument with metal pipes that is popular in concert music, and similar to the folk lusheng).  On top of the rhythmic patterns, I imitated a two--voice folk song of Zhuang minority people in the same province.  The melody is played by the leading erhu and dizi.—Chen Yi.