This vocal work sets the poetry of Li Po (Li Bai) in Chinese.\u00a0 The world premiere performance from my “Music for Voices” composer portrait concert in Southampton in 2012,\u00a0 was sung by English performers, and I did my best to coach them in the mandarin pronunciation (although of course Li Po’s own pronunciation is nothing like the modern standard mandarin dialect).\u00a0 The version performed at the Tianjin May Music Festival in 2015 had, of course, Chinese performers, who naturally sang with perfect pronunciation, but the music itself was a challenge for them.<\/p>\n
For the world premiere we used violin, while we had an erhu for the Tianjin version, which added a flavour to the music that fitted the visionary and philosophical world of the poetry.\u00a0 Tom Green expertly conducted the premiere, in which I played the piano.\u00a0 In the Tianjin version, I conducted, and got to experience this exceptionally difficult piece from another standpoint.<\/p>\n
The world premiere:<\/p>\n