TITLE: Dunhuang Fantasy (1999)

COMPOSER: Chen Yi (b.1953)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Born on April 4, 1953, in Guangzhou, China, composer, Chen Yi, started studying violin and piano when she was only three, with Zheng Rihua and Li Suxin, and music theory with Zheng Zhong.  Ms. Chen has received music degrees from the Beijing Central Conservatory (BA & MA) and Columbia University in the City of New York (DMA).  Her composition teachers have been Chou, Davidovsky, Wu and Goehr.  As the Lorena Searcey Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor in Composition at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Chen has served on the composition faculty of Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (1996-1998), and has been the Composer-in-Residence of the Women's Philharmonic and Chanticleer in San Francisco (1993-1996), which is supported by the Meet the Composer's New Residencies program.   She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and American Academy of Arts and Letters (Lieberson Award). 

Chen Yi's awards and honors include the Lili Boulanger (National Women Composers Resource Center), the Sorel Medal (New York University), the Alpert (CalArts Institute), the Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (University of Texas), the first prize from the Chinese National Composition Competition (Duo Ye for piano solo), and the most adventurous programming award from American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (for Music From China in New York). Major commissions from Koussevitzky, Fromm, Ford, Rockefeller foundations, Chamber Music America, Creative Work Fund, SF Art Commission, Mary Cary Trust, NYSCA, Carnegie Hall, New Heritage Music Foundation, the American Guild of Organists, and Meet The Composer, for the Women's Brooklyn and Los Angeles philharmonics,  New Music Consort, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Chanticleer, San Francisco Citywinds and San Francisco Girls Chorus, Music From China, Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, James Galway, Evelyn Glennie and Singapore Symphony, the Rascher Saxophone Quartet and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos and the Ying quartets, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, and many others. Chen Yi's music has been performed worldwide. 

She is published by Theodore Presser Company, and recorded on New Albion (1996), CRI (1999), Teldec (1997, 1999 with Grammy Award), Nimbus (1994), Cala (1996), Avant (1998), Atma (1999), and China Record Corporation (1986, 1990).    

Some of Chen Yi's most recent premieres include Chinese Poems by San Francisco Girls Chorus (May 1999), the Ba Ban for piano solo in San Francisco (March 2, 2000) and in New York, as a part of The Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book Project, and Dunhuang Fantasy for organ and chamber wind ensemble, in Seattle (July 4, 2000), as a part of the new millennium celebration of the American Guild of Organists.

MOVEMENTS: One

PERFORMANCE TIME: 12' 00"

INSTRUMENTATION: 13 Instruments

EDITIONS: Will be Available for Rental or Purchase

COMPOSITION SKETCH AND MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The Dunhuang Fantasy was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for Organ and the Rainier Chamber Winds.  The first performance is scheduled to take place at the American Guild of Organist's convention in Seattle, on July 4, 2000.

The imagination of this music came from the figures in the murals carved in the Mogao Caves in the ancient city of Dunhuang, China more than a thousand years ago.  The name Dunhuang originally meant "prospering and flourishing".  Lying at the western end of the Gansu Corridor in China, Dunhuang was very important in the "silk road" that carried new thoughts, ideas, arts and sciences to the East and West throughout Chinese history.  The Mogao Grottoes were built and developed over eleven dynasties, which span across a thousand years (from the 4th to the 14th centuries), with murals, sculptures, wooden cave buildings and books.  The artistic peak of this period of time occurred in Dunhuang, during the brilliant Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). The composer recommends a review of the artwork from this glorious time. These works exhibit rolling dance gestures, flapping streamer lines, flying melodies around the clouds, and fiery rhythms in the sky.  It demonstrates the high spirit and the strong power of these people and their society.  All of these impressions are translated into the textures of Chen Yi's organ solo part and crafted wind ensemble sound.  These textures are mysterious, vivid, colorful and energetic. The work brings us to dream of the ancient glory and to yearn for a future flourish.

 

SELECTED RECORDINGS

 

RELATED WEBSITES:

Hindemith Biography - http://www.hnh.com/composer/hindemit.htm