Meridian Flux – Mark Hagerty
Meridian Flux, a trio commissioned by 6-WIRE, reflects on travel, both physical and virtual, that today allows formerly remote populations to make deep cultural and personal connections. Meridians are not only east-west divisions of the globe. In traditional Chinese medicine’s mapping of the human body, meridians are lines of qi (chi), pathways of energy. Flux suggests flow, exchange, mixing. Meridian Flux aspires to take the listener on a journey and to reflect 6-WIRE’s mission of breaking down barriers and connecting people across the globe through music. (www.hagertymusic.com)
Clearwater Rhapsody – Bright Sheng
The erhu (literally, two-string fiddle) was originally brought into China from Central Asia through the Silk Road era. Across centuries, not only has it authenticated a distinctive Chinese character, but also a soloistic nature, especially when performed with a Western music ensemble. In Clearwater Rhapsody, I try to highlight the difference between the erhu and the piano trio, hoping the timbre and pitch discrepancy would make a strong solidarity of this work. Besides my appointment at UM, where I am the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music Composition, since 2010 I have had a visiting position at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, first as the Y. K. Pao Distinguished Visiting Professor of Humanities, then as the Anna Pao and Helmut Sohmen Professor-at-Large, a joint appointment by the university’s Institute for the Advanced Studies and the School of Humanities and Social Science. I have been very touched by the university’s strong commitment and support to provide its students of science and technology with first-rate arts education. My position at HKUST also afforded me a truly inspirational and breathtaking view of Hong Kong’s Clearwater Bay from my corner office on top of a hill, where I compose and prepare concerts in late spring and early summer each year. Looking over this part of the Pacific Ocean, I always marvel at its beauty and serenity attained within only a few miles from Hong Kong’s business districts, one of the most exciting metropolises in the world. This contrast and co-existence of opposite characters was very much in my mind when I conceived Clearwater Rhapsody. (www.brightsheng.com)
Ealasaid – Jennifer Margaret Barker
This composition sets the poetry of Helen Burness Cruickshank (1886–1975). Writing in the Scots and English languages, Cruickshank hailed from Angus in the northeast of Scotland, but spent most of her adult life in Edinburgh. In addition to being a poet and a suffragette, Cruickshank is credited with helping mobilize and document the mid-20th century Scottish Literary Renaissance movement. Her dedication and work ethic is evident by the fact that, in passing, she left an unfinished poem about a woman who could not stop for death because she had so much to do! The “wee” island of Tiree, described in Ealasaid, lies off the West coast of Scotland and currently hosts a population of around 650. It is the furthermost island in the Inner Hebrides. In setting this poem, Barker chose to commence with the final verse, thereby creating an almost cyclical flow to the order of the verses, as a nod to the cycle of life. (www.jennifermargaretbarker.com)