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Chinese composer Gao Weijie 高为杰 turned 80 this year. It’s hard to imagine having come to China without his keen insights and encouragement along the way. Gao Ping 高平 had organized a festschrift in his honor in the fall and asked me to contribute a chapter; the book was published last week by Southwest China Normal University Press (西南师范大学出版社).

This photo accompanies the article — it was taken at his birthday party in Spring 2015, a few months after I first came to Beijing.

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智者、严师、乐人、挚友：高为杰80寿辰庆贺纪念雅集 | “Sage, Strict Teacher, Musician, Friend: Gao Weijie’s 80th Birthday Celebration Anniversary Collection” 

Reverberations (2015) was a winner of the Victoria Composers Collective/Oak Bay New Music Festival’s Call for Scores and will be performed in Victoria, British Columbia tonight.

Xia YuYan 夏雨言 performed my recent pipa solo 空 in Lisbon last week at 21st CHIME (European Foundation for Chinese Music) Conference – Chinese Music as Cross Culture. Below is the poster and a picture of her performing with our friend Jiang Shaofeng 姜少峰 as part of their pipa and tap dance collaboration.

Written for & performed by Xia YuYan 夏雨言，

A few pictures from the rehearsals of my new work for YuYan over the past two weeks and of our recording session earlier today:

Cincinnati Soundbox will present five concerts this spring; the full listing is now up.

Movers & Makers Cincinnati also featured a little blurb today about Salon21‘s upcoming concert for which CSB was the Artistic Adviser.

I spent the fall meeting with friends to learn more about dizi (笛子), haegeum (奚琴), pipa (琵琶), and sheng (笙), and to go over recent & future pieces. In December, I finished a work for the Chinese Bamboo Flute Orchestra, and I have been busy since then on one for recorder player Sylvia Hinz.

Cincinnati Soundbox presented a joint concert with new music ensemble All of the Above in November that I co-curated with composer Laura Harrison, and has several concerts planned for the spring.

There is a new piece for haegeum (奚琴) and guzheng (古筝) to be written over the Chinese New Year…

…and a short piece for Xia YuYan, who will premiere it at the CHIME Conference this May in Lisbon.

新年快乐!