Qi [CF:114-40901]

Qi was commissioned and premiered by the New Music Consort of New York, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and dedicated to composer and Columbia University professor Prof. Chou Wen-Chung. In this work, Chen Yi uses a mixed combination of Western instruments in order to create an Eastern sound. In the composer’s words, she uses a mixed combination of Western instruments to “create the sound from the East, to express her feelings of the Qi abstractly. . .it’s so untouchable, so mysterious, but so strong and powerful. It melts into air and light, it’s like the space in Chinese paintings, it’s filled into the dancing lines of Chinese calligraphy, it’s the spirit in the human mind. In my composition, I translate the feeling of the Qi, the element of nature, into my musical language in a quite free and slow tempo. There are also exaggerated textures with tension, in which I try to sound the inner voices and spirit of human beings, to experience this eternal power.