Review of Six Tang Poems
This is a set of beautiful songs with brilliant music setting. Six Tang poems are wisely chosen and sung in trilingual languages. The music setting sounds extremely natural with the languages resulting in a very unique musical and poetic style. Music focus on the alto part has a narrative effect of the poems and some skillful composition writing in passages: (e.g. Qing ming Festival) adding together become a very enjoyable set of songs. Love to see the refreshing addition to the choral repertoire and wish to see this performed internationally.
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Andrew Chan
Music Director
S. V. A. C. Life Orchestra
Hauntingly lyrical and beautiful music. Voice blend was excellent. Director very good at drawing emotions from the singers. Very effective and very emotional in several of the pieces. Enjoy very much.
Marilyn Lambert
Bay Area Choral Director
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The use of English vs. Mandarin/ Cantonese almost seemed to have a "Greek Chorus" effect. I enjoyed the piano painting the words (staccato in piano reflecting raindrops, arpeggios reflecting the creeks). There was some phrasing I might have handled differently as a conductor, but that being said, I thought they were very well composed and enjoyed them very much.
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Mary Linduska
Vocal instructor
West Valley College
Stanford University (summer only)
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Foregrounding these classic texts was very appropriate. The choral compositions augmented the feelings of the texts. The bilingual language parts were most effectively linked by the compositions.
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Brian Ward
Opera San Jose Board of Trustees
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The way the English and the Chinese lyrics intersect along with the different musical styles and tonal language create such an interesting texture and tapestry of ideas - effectively evoking sentiments Eastern and Western music. Very fresh and interesting ideas!
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Alex Wong
Film composer
Lecturer
Shih Hsin University
Taiwan
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