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World Premiere of Lei Liang's Close Your Eyes, for SA Voices and Ensemble

Mar. 01, 2020

On March 19, the NewMusic Camerata will perform the world premiere of Lei Liang's Close your eyes. The performance is presented by the North Carolina NewMusic Initiative of East Carolina University which commissioned the work. The composer notes:

"Close your eyes (for mixed ensemble, 2020) explores the idea of “the living score” in which the notation serves as a reference for possible interpretation and a point of departure. After the notation is internalized through rehearsals and group discussions, the piece is to be performed at least twice, first from the score, second from memory with changes made to the notated version. The piece Close your eyes is named after a phrase my then 5-year-old son Albert said, before he handed me a surprise present. It evokes a condition of aural communication – a world illuminated by sounds."


Last month, Wave Dash (Camilla Hoitenga, flute and Magdalena Meitzner, percussion) gave the world premiere of Lei Liang’s Lakescape VIII at the University of New Mexico as part of The 49th Annual John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium. Lakescape VIII is the newest addition to the composer’s “Lakescape” series. The composer describes his inspiration for the series: 

“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.”
 

Listen to the first movement of Lei Liang’s 2021 Grawemeyer Award-winning work, 
A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams (2017):

(A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, I. Mountain in Darkness and the Piercing Light/
Lei Liang/Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose, conductor)

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

Lei Liang 
Close your eyes (2020)
for female voices (SA) and mixed ensemble
3fl, 3cl, 3euph, 3 perc.
6 or 12 voices (3 sopranos, 3 altos; or 6 sopranos, 6 altos)
11'

Lakescape VIII (2019) 
for flute and vibraphone
8’

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