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World Premiere of Lei Liang's Luminous with Mark Dresser and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players

Mar. 04, 2015

World Premiere of Lei Liang's <em>Luminous</em> with Mark Dresser and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players

On March 29, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players give the world premiere performance of Lei Liang’s Luminous for solo contrabass and chamber ensemble with bassist Mark Dresser. The event constitutes the final installment of SFCMP’s 2015 Project TenFourteen, a commissioning program that challenges 10 composers to write new pieces that “reflect upon and address the human condition, common to us all.”

Liang focused his composition on Dresser’s idiomatic approach to the contrabass. The composer states:

Luminous was inspired by Mark Dresser’s uniquely powerful musical expressions and innovative techniques created for the contrabass. The instrument’s rich spectra embody “voices” that encompass extreme opposites – lightness and darkness, angels and ghosts, paradise and inferno – unified by a singular vibrating body.

The piece requires the soloist to perform several extended techniques, including multiphonics, double-stop bowing, and a “threading technique” which allows for the bowing of multiple strings simultaneously. Each member of the accompanying chamber ensemble is outfitted with a spring drum for additional spatial and sonic effects. Steven Schick conducts the ensemble at Cal Performances' Hertz Hall in Berkeley, California.

For more information on Lei Liang, visit schott-music.com.

For tickets and concert information, visit sfcmp.org.

Lei Liang
Luminous (2015)
for solo contrabass and chamber ensemble
bass clarinet (with small spring drum), horn (with medium spring drum), percussion (3cym, 5tempbl, whip, whistle, guiro, 1timp, crot, vib, 2bng, tam-t, b.d), piano (with protractor and slide bar), violin (with small spring drum), viola (with medium spring drum), cello (with large spring drum)
20’

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