Selected Works

The traditions of accompanied song may be heard in the opening pieces performed by pipa player MIN XIAO-FEN. One of her own compositions, influenced by Miles Davis’ epoch-making jazz single All Blues, appears sandwiched between two older Chinese tunes. Flying Flowers Touching the Green Grass poetically sets the scene. It is composed in the traditional lyric style and depicts a scene of snow flakes dropping on evergreens, exemplifying their resilience to the cold. The third piece, Ambush from All Sides, is written in the martial style. In 202 B.C. a great battle took place between the kingdom of Chu and the kingdom of Han. Each section of the piece bears a subtitle referring to the conflict: “Army camping,” “Marching,” “Ambush,” “Battle on Cock-Crow Mountain,” “Defeat of the Kingdom of Chu,” “Victory over the Kingdom of Han,” and “Triumphant Return.”
The choral work “Mountain and Ocean Song of Joy” is based on aboriginal tunes from Taiwan. Its structure includes five distinct sections of alternating polyphony and chant-like portions, and in the middle we hear a spoken recitation of nonsense syllables symbolizing the numerous dialects of Chinese. The text speaks largely of carefree emotions and scenes, and the whole piece begins and ends with the same hymn to God in praise of Him who created “the many beautiful things around us.”

(c) Jason Stell