....I,Laika.... (1989) was commissioned by Ensemble Daedaleus with the assistance of a Canada Council commissioning grant.
The following two paragraphs inspired the creation of this piece: "The origin of music is in the very remote past. It was born of equal measurement and rooted in the Grand Unity. The Grand Unity gave birth to the Counterparts [heaven and earth]. The Counterparts gave birth to yin and yang transformed and stratified into higher and lower levels. These came together and formed regular patterns. Rolling over and about, again and again, they would separate, then come together and then separate. This is called the constancy of heaven; the turning wheel of heaven and earth coming to an end begins again, reaching its ultimate source. All things are part of this process."
Spring & Autumn Annals of Mr. Lü (ca. 239 B.C.)
"Nov. 3 While U.S. scientists frantically scratched away at the drawing board, the U.S.S.R. placed its second satellite in orbit. Sputnik 2, several times larger than its predecessor, carried the first living creature, a dog named Laika, into space. Wired from snout to paw with electronic sensors, Laika fed Soviet scientists on the ground valuable data on the biological effects of takeoff and weightlessness. The animal's oxygen supply gave out in 10 days, as planned, and Laika became the first living thing to die in space." The People's Almanac
....I,Laika.... is dedicated to the memory of my father, Colonel Luke S. S. Lee, an air force pilot who was reported missed during a mission to Laos in 1961.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden I. snow-in-summer (2013) was written for a cross-cultural project in which Nicole Li and Corey Hamm in Vancouver have commissioned over twenty Canadian and Chinese composers to write new works for erhu and piano.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, ‘somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond’.
"…or if you wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;..."
_________________________
Imaginary Garden II. petal by petal...Spring opens her first rose… was written for harpist Gianetta Baril and saxophone virtuoso Jeremy Brown, members of the Rubbing Stone Ensemble. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
"…in your most fragile gesture are things which enclose me...
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens her first rose..."
_________________________
Imaginary Garden III. dancing cosmos in autumn wind was written for cuarteto apasionado, a guitar quartet in Berlin.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
“...nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility...”
Imaginary Garden III. dancing cosmos in autumn wind is commissioned by cuarteto apasionado, with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden IV. …beyond for recorder and trumpet was written in 2016 for German recorder virtuoso Kristina Schoch and trumpeter Simon Höfele. The version for violin and cello was written for Julie-Anne Derome and Gabriel Prynn of Trio Fibonacci in 2017.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
“ somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond...”
_________________________
Imaginary Garden V. renewed at every glance was commissioned by accordionist Stefan Hussong and pianist Yumiko Meguri for the Tessera Music Festival “atarashii−mimi” in Tokyo, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. Imaginary Garden V consists of seven sections: every glance, fleeting, lost-seeking, path where the poppies blow, deafening silence, fleeing, renewed at every glance.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden VI…into the distance… for recorder and guitar was commissioned by recorder virtuoso Kristina Schoch with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion.
Imaginary Garden is dedicated to Nicole, Corey, Gianetta, Jeremy, Andrea, Kristina, Stefan, Yumiko, Julie-Anne and Bob. These pieces would not have been composed without the enthusiasm and encouragement of these wonderful musicians.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden VII…until another year, another bloom…
“God gives us memories that
we have rose gardens in winter”
Obituary, Rosalind W.Y. Lee (1927-2017)
Imaginary Garden VII was written for flautist Robert Aitken and Land’s End Ensemble. It was commissioned by the Land’s End Ensemble with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion.
Imaginary Garden is dedicated to Nicole, Corey, Gianetta, Jeremy, Andrea, Kristina, Stefan, Yumiko, Julie-Anne and Bob. These pieces would not have been composed without the enthusiasm and encouragement of these wonderful musicians.
_________________________
In A Mirror of Light for early music ensemble, synthesizer/sampler and sound files (1988) was composed for a multimedia project Lumina, a fusion of music and light which has its aesthetic and technical foundations in the 14th-century, but it recreates and transforms the art of the medieval period through the aesthetic and technological resources of our time.
In a Mirror of Light frequently drew upon musical passages, forms, text and performance practice from the Medieval Period. Among all the source material, Hildegard von Bingen's Sequences and Hymns, particularly Columba Aspexit, was my greatest inspiration. The electroacoustic part was realized in the electronic studio at UC Berkeley. The creation and production of Lumina was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
_________________________
In the Beginning was the End for harpsichord & accordion (1989)
In the Beginning was the End.
And God saw the Beginnng and the End and was pleased.
And He asked the Beginning and the End to separate.
And they said No.
Then God was not pleased and threw a tantrum,
And said Why Not?
And the Beginning and the End said We Cannot.
And God said What Will You Do Then?
And the Beginning and the End said Just Watch Us.
Gwendolyn MacEwen, Genesis 2 AFTERWORLDS
When harpsichordist Vivienne Spiteri suggested the idea of a duet for the two “unusual" keyboard instruments, I thought of the distinct sound characteristic of each: on the accordion, the sound is created by air passing through reeds, thus actually a wind instrument; whereas on the harpsichord, strings are plucked and resonate. Then I saw an illustration from a Western Han dynasty silk painting showing two musicians sitting side by side, one blowing a sheng, the other plucking a guqin. I realized suddenly that this duet would be the very first piece of an eleven-piece cycle Voices in Time I have been contemplating since 1979. The cycle draws upon musical, poetic, literary and historical elements selected from eleven dynasties, spanning 5000 years of Chinese civilization. Through re-interpreting and re-defining the past which must have shaped our own existence, they are expressed in a contemporary musical idiom to reflect the present.
In the Beginning was the End is commissioned by Vivienne Spiteri and Joeseph Macerollo with a Canada Council for the Arts commissioning grant.
The following two paragraphs inspired the creation of this piece: "The origin of music is in the very remote past. It was born of equal measurement and rooted in the Grand Unity. The Grand Unity gave birth to the Counterparts [heaven and earth]. The Counterparts gave birth to yin and yang transformed and stratified into higher and lower levels. These came together and formed regular patterns. Rolling over and about, again and again, they would separate, then come together and then separate. This is called the constancy of heaven; the turning wheel of heaven and earth coming to an end begins again, reaching its ultimate source. All things are part of this process."
Spring & Autumn Annals of Mr. Lü (ca. 239 B.C.)
"Nov. 3 While U.S. scientists frantically scratched away at the drawing board, the U.S.S.R. placed its second satellite in orbit. Sputnik 2, several times larger than its predecessor, carried the first living creature, a dog named Laika, into space. Wired from snout to paw with electronic sensors, Laika fed Soviet scientists on the ground valuable data on the biological effects of takeoff and weightlessness. The animal's oxygen supply gave out in 10 days, as planned, and Laika became the first living thing to die in space." The People's Almanac
....I,Laika.... is dedicated to the memory of my father, Colonel Luke S. S. Lee, an air force pilot who was reported missed during a mission to Laos in 1961.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden I. snow-in-summer (2013) was written for a cross-cultural project in which Nicole Li and Corey Hamm in Vancouver have commissioned over twenty Canadian and Chinese composers to write new works for erhu and piano.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, ‘somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond’.
"…or if you wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;..."
_________________________
Imaginary Garden II. petal by petal...Spring opens her first rose… was written for harpist Gianetta Baril and saxophone virtuoso Jeremy Brown, members of the Rubbing Stone Ensemble. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
"…in your most fragile gesture are things which enclose me...
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens her first rose..."
_________________________
Imaginary Garden III. dancing cosmos in autumn wind was written for cuarteto apasionado, a guitar quartet in Berlin.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
“...nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility...”
Imaginary Garden III. dancing cosmos in autumn wind is commissioned by cuarteto apasionado, with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden IV. …beyond for recorder and trumpet was written in 2016 for German recorder virtuoso Kristina Schoch and trumpeter Simon Höfele. The version for violin and cello was written for Julie-Anne Derome and Gabriel Prynn of Trio Fibonacci in 2017.
Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. The first four works are inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond.
“ somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond...”
_________________________
Imaginary Garden V. renewed at every glance was commissioned by accordionist Stefan Hussong and pianist Yumiko Meguri for the Tessera Music Festival “atarashii−mimi” in Tokyo, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion. Imaginary Garden V consists of seven sections: every glance, fleeting, lost-seeking, path where the poppies blow, deafening silence, fleeing, renewed at every glance.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden VI…into the distance… for recorder and guitar was commissioned by recorder virtuoso Kristina Schoch with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion.
Imaginary Garden is dedicated to Nicole, Corey, Gianetta, Jeremy, Andrea, Kristina, Stefan, Yumiko, Julie-Anne and Bob. These pieces would not have been composed without the enthusiasm and encouragement of these wonderful musicians.
_________________________
Imaginary Garden VII…until another year, another bloom…
“God gives us memories that
we have rose gardens in winter”
Obituary, Rosalind W.Y. Lee (1927-2017)
Imaginary Garden VII was written for flautist Robert Aitken and Land’s End Ensemble. It was commissioned by the Land’s End Ensemble with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Imaginary Garden, a sonic garden of discovery, growth, imagination and recollection, is a series of short chamber pieces written for unusual instrumental combinations, with the intention of exploring musical gestures with motion, images, and emotion.
Imaginary Garden is dedicated to Nicole, Corey, Gianetta, Jeremy, Andrea, Kristina, Stefan, Yumiko, Julie-Anne and Bob. These pieces would not have been composed without the enthusiasm and encouragement of these wonderful musicians.
_________________________
In A Mirror of Light for early music ensemble, synthesizer/sampler and sound files (1988) was composed for a multimedia project Lumina, a fusion of music and light which has its aesthetic and technical foundations in the 14th-century, but it recreates and transforms the art of the medieval period through the aesthetic and technological resources of our time.
In a Mirror of Light frequently drew upon musical passages, forms, text and performance practice from the Medieval Period. Among all the source material, Hildegard von Bingen's Sequences and Hymns, particularly Columba Aspexit, was my greatest inspiration. The electroacoustic part was realized in the electronic studio at UC Berkeley. The creation and production of Lumina was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
_________________________
In the Beginning was the End for harpsichord & accordion (1989)
In the Beginning was the End.
And God saw the Beginnng and the End and was pleased.
And He asked the Beginning and the End to separate.
And they said No.
Then God was not pleased and threw a tantrum,
And said Why Not?
And the Beginning and the End said We Cannot.
And God said What Will You Do Then?
And the Beginning and the End said Just Watch Us.
Gwendolyn MacEwen, Genesis 2 AFTERWORLDS
When harpsichordist Vivienne Spiteri suggested the idea of a duet for the two “unusual" keyboard instruments, I thought of the distinct sound characteristic of each: on the accordion, the sound is created by air passing through reeds, thus actually a wind instrument; whereas on the harpsichord, strings are plucked and resonate. Then I saw an illustration from a Western Han dynasty silk painting showing two musicians sitting side by side, one blowing a sheng, the other plucking a guqin. I realized suddenly that this duet would be the very first piece of an eleven-piece cycle Voices in Time I have been contemplating since 1979. The cycle draws upon musical, poetic, literary and historical elements selected from eleven dynasties, spanning 5000 years of Chinese civilization. Through re-interpreting and re-defining the past which must have shaped our own existence, they are expressed in a contemporary musical idiom to reflect the present.
In the Beginning was the End is commissioned by Vivienne Spiteri and Joeseph Macerollo with a Canada Council for the Arts commissioning grant.