For piano and live computer projection
2018 · 13 min
(Screen recording of piano performance by Jenny Q Chai)
Calligraphies for ZiQi came about from a long-time fascination with Chinese cursive style of writing. As a composer and media artist I was particularly interested in calligraphic gesture as it is performed in time - watching the brush, hand and body. Using computer's ability to intelligently listen and follow musical gestures the pianist gets to re-dance chosen characters, deconstruct and reconstruct them. The video recordings of Shanshan Zhao, master calligrapher collaborating in the project were produced by Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The merging of sound and image was inspired also by a legendary friendship during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), between guqin master Yu Boya and a woodsman Zhong Ziqi. The two became soul mates when during an unexpected travel interruption Boya performed on a riverside for the unlikely local listener Ziqi. No one had understood his playing so well before. Their communion was so strong that after a sudden death of Ziqi, Boya broke his guqin never to play again. To this day, a common Chinese word to describe a bosom friend is Zhiyin, which literally means 'to understand the music'.
2018
2019
2018