General Information
Composers/Europe
Composers/Taiwan
What is Wu Xing?
Why Wu Xing as a Theme?
The Contest
Downloads
Contact/CreditsChai Found Music Workshop is proud to present its most recent project of Contemporary Music with 8 world premieres by 4 Taiwanese and 4 European composers. The theme of this cross-cultural musical production is Wu Xing, the five elements or phases in traditional Chinese philosophy.
A competition for composers will be held. The Taiwan part is conducted by the Taiwanese section of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) and Chai Found Music Workshop. The International part is conducted by Chai Found Music Workshop alone.
The concert of Wu Xing will present the selected compositions from 4 Taiwanese and 4 European composers. It will take place on November 28, 2009 at Forum Music in Taipei. The music will be recorded and published as a CD.
The instrumentation includes the instruments of a classic Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo) Music ensemble: Erhu (Chinese Violin), Di (Chinese Bamboo Flutes), Pipa (Chinese lute), Gucheng (Chinese Zither), Yangqin (Chinese Dulcimer), Ruan (Chinese Guitar)/ Liuqin (Chinese Ukulele), plus the Chinese mouth organ Sheng.
Peter Bjuhr - Life in 5 Movements
Peter Buhr [Sweden]
Peter Bjuhr has studied both traditional classical music and newer form and styles of art music. The studies includes form, arrangement, instrumentation, harmony and notation. He has also studied more popular music from a theoretical point of view. His output includes music for various ensembles and electronic music. When writing ensemble music he prefers to compose in close collaboration with the musicians. His style is freshly contemporary with its roots in the modern, romantic, classical and baroque tradition of art music. He likes to use influences from other musical genres including jazz, world music and rock/pop.
Alongside his studies in music Peter Bjuhr has also studied philosophy. Naturally his output as a composer is influenced by his philosophical studies. Often the works include something other than the purely musical. This fact has also made his music closer to other forms of art.
Since 2009 Peter Bjuhr is a member of the Society of Swedish Composers (FST), and a member of C-Y contemporary, an association for contemporary music and sound art, and works closely with other members of the association.
http://composerpeterbjuhr.com
Life in 5 Movements
[for Qudi, Zhonghu, Pipa, Guzheng, Yangqin, Liuqin, Ruan, Sheng]Composing this work gave me the opportunity to learn more about Wu Xing (the Five Movements, Five Phases or Five Steps/Stages). The system of Wu Xing has a rich representation or symbolism of which I have tried to incorporate several different aspects. The symbolism of Wu Xing that I have given the most dominate role is the connection to five phases of life - birth, youth, adulthood, old age and death, making the piece about the whole of a human life.
How then is the symbolism of the different phases of life interpreted musically? I have mostly made this representation by way of the structure and density of the music and the musical freshness contra traditionalism of the themes and ideas. Generally the structure gets thicker the later in life we get with a thinning towards the end. When I use the Wu Xing of mental qualities and emotions, it should be interpreted in the context of the current movement, i.e. the period of life under display:
Sensitive - like a child or new born
Angry - in the way a child or a new born could be
Creative - youthful creativity
Happy - youthful happiness
Clarity - the clarity of experience
Anxious - the anxiety that comes with adulthood
Sad - the sadness of loss of youth
Intuitive - the intuition that comes from experience
Scary - the fear of death
Spontaneous - the acceptance of (the near) death, and the inavoidability of living in the present - because you have made up with the past and there is no futureOther aspects of the Wu Xing systems have also influenced me, but in a way that is more difficult to state clearly. Perhaps the performers would also give their contribution by interpreting the piece with their experiences and interpretations of Wu Xing.
One other aspect though that have an obvious importance is the connection between Wu Xing and five pentatonic scales ( jué, zhi, gong, shang and yu). With very few exceptions the different movements uses these scales in different transpositions.
Elena V. Lebedeva - "Watercolours"
Elena V. Lebedeva [ Russia]
Elena V. Lebedeva was born on 17 November 1957 in Kostroma. Finished a school of music (piano class).
1973-1977 – studied at Kostroma College of Music.
1978-1983 – studied at Kazan State Conservatory (composition class) (Professor – Anatoly Luppov, orchestration — Professor Nazib Zhiganov).
1983-1986 – assistantship-training at Kazan State Conservatory (class of Professor A. Luppov).
From 1986 – a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR, from 1996 – a member of the Union of Composers of Russia.
Participated in many festivals of modern music in Russia and abroad.
Tours – Germany, Austria, Finland.
Has been working at Kostroma Drama Theatre named after A. Ostrovsky.
Watercolours
[for Di, Pipa, Yangqin, Ruan, Sheng]
“Watercolours” is a suite consisting of 5 parts (composed in 2009).
The composition is based on the figure 5 which corresponds to 5 elements (“Wu Xing”) in ancient Chinese philosophy: there are 5 parts in the composition, the ensemble consists of 5 instruments, each of them symbolizes a microelement, their interaction symbolizes mutual creation and overcoming. The author tried to represent the elements through times of the day and their correspondences to the five colours.
Brian Ledwidge Flynn - "Reorientation"
Brian Ledwidge Flynn [Ireland]
Brian Ledwidge Flynn is a recent graduate of music from Trinity College Dublin where he studied music technology and specialised in composition which he studied with Donnacha Dennehy. Brian also holds qualifications in radio broadcasting and sound for film and television. He has worked with the B.B.C. sound department (Gormenghast - 2000) and composed music for a number of multi-media and broadcast productions. Brian has attended composition seminars with Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Kevin Volans.
Since graduating Brian’s music has featured on national radio and has been performed at numerous festivals both at home and abroad. Brian is a participating member of the Young Composers Collective of Ireland and artistic director of the ten-piece Engine Room Orchestra.
Reorientation
for Di, Erhu, Pipa, Guzheng, Yangqin, Liuqin, Ruan, Sheng]
In this piece I have assigned a melodic pattern to each of the five elements. The melodic patterns are related to each other by way of pitch and rhythm. These are ordered into the relevant sequence for generating and overcoming cycles.I have also used the traditional pentatonic associations with each element of the cycle and used these as a secondary musical representation.
These two musical incarnations of the cycles and their elements interact throughout the piece in exploration of their deeper meaning. The title 'Reorientation' refers to both the method of combining and expanding the material as well as to the Oriental origins of the WuXing.
Martijn Vanbuel – "五金行" (Wu Jin Hang)
Martijn Vanbuel [ Belgium] l
Double-bassist Martijn Vanbuel is from Belgium and studied jazz in the Lemmensinstituut conservatory of Leuven, Belgium and at the Superieur Conservatory of Paris, France. He has been performing for a decade and a half, playing a wide variety of styles, from bebop to free jazz, from pop to ethnic, and has shared the stage with some of Belgium most well-known jazz musicians.
After living and working professionally in Shanghai he moved to Taipei in September 2006 and started performing intensively, soon becoming one of Taiwan most wanted musicians. Among others, he has appeared Matthew Lien, Zhang Hui Mei, Wang Li Hong, Brown Sugar House Band. He occasionally accompanies international artists on their visits to Taiwan, such as Tony Lakatos, Andy Jaffe, Joel Holmes, James Carter.
In 2008 he joined Peng YuWen’s Band SiZhuKong, which fuses traditional Chinese music with jazz. With SiZhuKong he has been touring all over Taiwan and abroad. Highlight performances included the Java Jazz Festival 2008 (Indonesia), the Jarasum Jazz Festival 2008 (Korea), JZjazz Shanghai (2009), and concerts in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Xia Men in China. Martijn is a dedicated member of this unique band and has contributed his own compositions to its repertoire, some of which are included in the recently released new album “Zhi Yuan”. In Taiwan, Martijn Vanbuel has played at the Taichung Jazz Festival with ShuQiWu Group (2007) and with his own project Free Breathing World (2008), at the Taipei Jazz Festival with QiPin-KaiYa Quartet (2007) and with SiZhuKong (2008).
Martijn Vanbuel is leading his own bands Free Breathing Ensemble and Orbit Folks for which he composes and arranges music. Nurtured by his interest in ethnic and world music, he likes to experiment with musical ideas from different styles and cultural backgrounds. Martijn Vanbuel performs professionally on piano, double bass, electric bass and accordion.
五金行 (Wu Jin Hang)
[for Di, Erhu, Pipa, Guzheng, Yangqin, Liuqin, Ruan, Sheng]
The composition is made out of 6 sections: the intro 前奏; earth 土; metal 金; fire 火; wood 木; water 水. Every element corresponds to a cardinal direction 方位 and in this sense a certain place on the planet earth and a certain kind of music connected to the place.Intro – 前奏: the main melody of the composition is exposed, it is based on the tones in the Chinese language of the words 土 tu3, 佳 jia1, 金 jin1, 鑫 xin1, 木 mu4, 森 sen1, 林 lin2, 火 huo3, 炎 yan2, 水 shui3, 冰 bing1 (the numbers are tone marks for the pronunciation of the sounds). The melody and elements of the melody will reappear throughout the whole composition.
Earth – 土: in this section guzheng is featured as the main instrument. Earth corresponds to the centre 中 which is China. Therefore only Chinese pentatonics are used for the melodies. The harmonies played by sheng, ruan and pipa make the Chinese pentatonics sound different each time.
Metal – 金: metal corresponds to the West, and in this composition to Western music in particular. This section is written in the fugue style a la Bach and uses the entire main melody and its mirrored inversion. The pipa is featured.
Fire – 火: fire is south, so Africa. The groove shared by guzheng and ruan is very important to create this atmosphere. Erhu is featured and plays a rhythmic role as well, reminding of the African instrument njarka (o.a. played by Ali Farka Toure). A new melody roughly based on the main melody is exposed. In between are improvisations like chants.
Wood – 木: wood is East . While guzheng and yangqin hold down a drone on D, the melodic instruments liuqin and pipa are weaving symmetrical melodic lines around the drone, always returning to its original form, much like the branches are growing from the stem of a tree.
Water – 水: Water corresponds to North where water freezes to ice. The chord changes in this section remind of the icy plains in the Northern hemisphere. Yangqin is featured, but more and more all the instruments gather and the ice melts. The melodies in the accompaniment are roughly based on the Hakka song Shi Ba Mo 十八摸.
土 - 中 – do 宮 Chinese pentatonic 土佳 (3-1聲) 古箏
金 - 西 – re 商 fugue style 金鑫 (1-1聲) 琵琶
火 – 南 – sol 徵 African pentatonic 火炎 (3-2聲) 二胡
木 – 東 – mi 角 melodic symmetric scale 木森林 (4-1-2聲) 柳琴
水 – 北 – la 羽 icy harmony 水冰 (3-1聲) 洋琴
Below is a video of the audition for the Taiwanese composers on September 13, 2009 in Taipei.
Wu Xing (“five elements”, or rather “five phases”) is an ancient Chinese model for describing nature or ‘the way the world works’. Wu Xing is an integral part of Taoistic philosophy and explains the ever-changing interactions and relationships between phenomena of nature. It is not a static concept, but emphasizes processes. The idea of the 5 phases still traceable in modern Chinese society and it is omnipresent in traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, in Feng Shui, and in martial arts such as Tai Chi Quan or Qi Gong.
The five elements and their ascribed phases are:
Wood (mu) - Rising, Ascension
Fire (huo) - Activity, Action
Earth (tu - Change, Alteration
Metal (jin) - Maturity, Decay
Water (shui) - Calm, Contemplation
Each of the elements is associated with various aspects of nature such as colors, directions, forms of energy, climates, seasons, planets, the 5 tones of the pentatonic scale, or even livestock. As shown in the diagram below, they are usually depicted in a circle, which forms two cycles of which one is attributed as ‘generating’, the other as ‘overcoming’. The ‘generating cycle’ (black) is like this: wood feeds fire, fire produces earth (ash), earth bears metal, metal carries water (for example in buckets), water nourishes wood. The ‘overcoming cycle’: wood (roots) parts earth, earth absorbs water, water quenches fire, fire melts metal, metal chops wood.
The concept of Wu Xing is a wide field. There are countless associations between the elements and their attributed phenomena. We decided to let you choose yourself from the plentiful of information which is available on the internet.
Here are some links from the English Wikipedia, which you can also search
in your own language.General overview of the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_xingMore disciplines that apply the Wu Xing concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching
The 5 phases have proven their validity over the last several millennia and have had an immeasurable impact on Chinese thought, culture, and everyday life. To most modern Chinese people, though, Wu Xing might seem ancient.
In the Western world, the attraction of Eastern philosophical and religious ideas is growing, with an increasing number of people applying them to their personal life. Often, those ideas make their way back to the East, perhaps in slightly
altered forms.This is the starting point for the project: reflecting Chai Found Music Workshop’s interests and areas of activity, it is two-fold: a Taiwan portion and a European portion are brought together in a concert and the publishing of a CD. By involving composers from opposite ends of the world, Wu Xing aims at bridging two forms of culture.
The competition and the following concert make use of an important notion from the East, let it migrate to the West and return to its origin in a new form. Not only that, Eastern artists are given the chance for re-interpreting one of the most influential theories of their own culture. Thus, European composers can discover a new and fresh idea here, while Taiwanese composers can re-vive their own venerable cultural background. All this is done in the form of contemporary music played on the traditional instruments of Chinese music.
Just as in music, the balance between the five elements is always in motion and ever-changing, and can only be experienced with the passing of time. It will be interesting to hear, what ideas the composers will come up with: whether they take it literally or poetically, whether they focus on the cycles or on just one element, what they use, what they omit, what they emphasize, how they comment on it. Even more so, as the five elements also represent the five notes of the pentatonic scale.
1 Purpose
The international competition of Wu Xing is hosted by Chai Found Music Workshop. The purpose is to motivate contemporary composers to write for Chinese instruments and to enhance communication between the composers and the performing ensemble.
2 Qualification
There is no age limit. Citizens of the European Union can apply.3 Theme
The compositions must be new creations, and/or never performed before. The compositions are related to the theme ‘Wu Xing’ (the 5 ancient Chinese elements). The formulation of this relationship is up to the composer.4 Prizes
There is no ranking in prizes. Each of the 4 winners will receive a commission of 350 Euro. The concert of Wu Xing will present the winning compositions of 4 Taiwanese and 4 European composers. It will take place on November 28, 2009 at Forum Music in Taipei. The music will be recorded and published as a CD. Each composer will receive 10 samples of the Audio CD.5 Instrumentation and Duration
The instrumentation h as to include at least 3 up to 7 of the instruments of a Sizhu (Silk and Bamboo) Music ensemble: Erhu (Chinese Violin), Di (Chinese Bamboo Flutes), Pipa (Chinese lute), Gucheng (Chinese Zither), Yangqin (Chinese Dulcimer), Ruan (Chinese Guitar)/ Liuqin (Chinese Ukulele), plus the Chinese mouth organ Sheng. The duration has to be not less than 8 minutes, and not more than 12 minutes.6 Procedure
- The deadline for handing in the compositions is October 1st, 2009.
- The compositions have to be sent as a printable pdf-files (scores and parts) to promotion@cfmw.com.tw.
- The reception of the documents will be confirmed by Chai Found Music Workshop. Chai Found Music Workshop will go through and play all submitted works to select the
4 winners.
- The winners will be notified on November 1, 2009 and their names will be published on the Chai Found Music Workshop website www.cfmw.com.tw7 How to apply
Please refer to the application form.
Feel free to contact us by phone under +886-2-25024960 Mr. Klaus Bru or write an email to promotion@cfmw.com.tw.
Please also visit our website for more information: www.cfmw.com.tw
Instrument Information (pdf)
Wu Xing
c/o Chai Found Music Workshop
2F, No. 13, Lane 295, Long Jiang Road, Taipei 104, Taiwan
Phone: +886-2-25024960
Fax: +886-2-25158533
promotion@cfmw.com.tw
www.cfmw.com.tw
Producer: Chai Found Music Workshop
Concept, Logo, Design: Klaus Bru
Translations: Jason Ying
Sponsor: ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music), Section Taiwan
