Category: Uncategorized

I spent the day at the Sprengel Museum with Autumn, brainstorming over our new work for Beiguan ensemble and electronics which will premiere there in November of this year.

A few photos from pianist Judith Goetze’s performance of 浮沤 (2016) during the Tage Neuer Musik Regensburg 2020:

A few photos from Juxtatonal‘s performance of Reverberations last night in Cincinnati:

A few months ago, I finished a new work for soprano and double bass with text by poet Eleanor Goodman. Departure Duo had commissioned the work, and gave several performances last month in New York and Boston — they are ideal collaborators and were so attentive to the world of the piece.

A few photos from our performances of Ebb and flow this month in Qingdao and in Beijing:

A photo with Xia Yuyan and Zhang Yongyun while recording Ebb and flow yesterday afternoon:

And a few photos from time spent researching suona 唢呐 late last week with performer Hou Yan Qiu, in preparation for a project with electronics next year:

I visited Heidelberg last week to catch Xia Yuyan’s concert with Jiang Shaofeng at the opening of the CHIME Collection:

It was wonderful to see/hear them both in Germany and also to discuss with Yuyan drafts for our upcoming nanpa/percussion collaboration for September.

I am back from a busy month in China, where I was carrying out research in preparation for upcoming works.

I spent time learning about Nanpa 南琶 from Xia Yuyan for a future piece…

…as well as with Wang Meng, learning more about Nanxiao 南箫 (pictured) and shakuhachi (尺八, 尺六):

I also spent a few days in Hangzhou researching Sanxian 三弦 for a separate project with Professor Chen Jingjing at the Zhejiang Conservatory:

Sylvia Hinz will give the premiere of my alto recorder work this June in Columbia. More information here.

A few photos and the accompanying notes from the premiere of my recent work for two speaking percussionists, performed this past week by Yongyun Zhang & Xinyi Zheng:

“In the furnace, she casts herself as an iron nail…
在炉中，他把自己熔铸成一颗铁钉…”

An Iron Nail 铁钉 explores the poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong 郑小琼 (b. 1980), a former migrant worker who left Sichuan Province to enter the factories in Guangdong Province. At age twenty-one, she began to write about her experiences. Her poems offer a window into the lives of and conditions faced by factory workers.

“Time…
时间…”

When I visited Xiaoqiong in May 2018, she took me to Dongguan to listen to the sounds of the factories firsthand. Every factory sounds unique: a plastic factory, a hardware factory, an electronics factory…

“Little by little gathering rust,
一点一点积蓄着锈,

Little by little swallowing her up…
一点一点吞噬着…”

This work is dedicated to Zhang Yongyun and to Zheng Xiaoqiong.
April 2019, Beijing.