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New Works by Lei Liang at La Jolla SummerFest and in Bennington

Jul. 16, 2018

New Works by Lei Liang at La Jolla SummerFest and in Bennington

This summer brings two world premieres from Lei Liang. On July 25, the world premiere of Lakescape VI for woodwind quintet will be performed at the Bennington Chamber Music Festival.

Lei Liang describes the inspiration behind his series of Lakescape works:


“Having been interested in Mahayana Buddhism for a number of years, I went to a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York to study meditation in 1999. One evening, while walking alone by the side of the lake, I caught the sight of a “V” shape floating and extending on the surface of the water. It was a beaver taking a swim under the moon. This image gave me insight into my relationship with silence: underneath the music is a profoundly deep silence upon which I seek to inscribe my signature through sound.  It serves as a point of departure that led to a series of works.”

On August 14, the Flux Quartet performs the world premiere of vis-à-vis at Conrad Prebys Concert Hall in La Jolla, California for the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest. On August 9, the same ensemble will perform Liang’s Serashi Fragments in La Jolla. Liang notes, “vis-à-vis was commissioned by the La Jolla Music Society for SummerFest, and dedicated to Wu Man and Steven Schick who have inspired me over the years.”

On July 22, Lei Liang sees the New York premiere of his string quartet, Gobi Gloriaperofmred by the Ansonia Quartet at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Summergarden. He notes:

Gobi Gloria belongs to a series of compositions that grew out of my admiration for Mongolian music. The series includes Feng (for cello solo, written for Feng Hew), Gobi Polyphony (for erhu and cello, written for Xu Ke), Gobi Canticle (for violin and cello, written for Masuko Ushioda and Laurence Lesser), and Serashi Fragments(written for the Arditti Quartet). The melody is played against its own inversion, retrograde and retrograde-inversion in an otherwise mostly heterophonic texture. The piece alludes to various genres of Mongolian music that include the longchant, as well as the music of dance and shaman rituals. It concludes with a rendering of a folk song that I heard during my visit to the Nei Monggol region in 1996.”


Lei Liang will also serve as composer-in-residence at the Valencia International Performance Academy & Festival July 10-20, the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, July 22-28, and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival, July 29-Aug 3.




(Gobi Gloria/Lei Liang/The JACK quartet)

 

To learn more about Lei Liang, please visit schott-music.com.

 

Lei Liang

Lakescape VI (2018)

For woodwind quintet

7’

 

Serashi Fragments (2005)

For string quartet

7’

 

vis-à-vis (2018)

For pipa & percussion

15’

 

Gobi Gloria (2014)

For string quartet

11’

 

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