11-1/2 mins. 8-channel work: commission of the Musicacoustica 2013 Festival, Beijing using recorded sounds of traditional Chinese music – it is the first work in the composer’s ‘old / new’ series

Programme note:

This piece for 8-channel recorded sounds involves only samples taken from traditional Chinese music which act as source material to demonstrate the wealth of musical and spiritual traditions in China as well as the fact that traditions can be renewed to be as fresh as anything newly discovered. The work is a commission of the Musicacoustica 2013 festival and was premièred there last October. This work is dedicated to Zhang Xiaofu as he has shown the way of respecting his traditions whilst celebrating the dynamic nature of both Chinese contemporary music and Chinese contemporary society.

In an earlier work focused on the sheng, the composer composed a rap at the end that included the following lines:

‘There’s nothing new under the sun;

Take something old and have some fun.

Now this old sheng sounds really new …’

The sheng’s sounds, as all sounds of traditional music, can sound both old and new. This piece intends to explore both and that led to its title.

I would like to acknowledge Zhang Ruibo and Jin Weiwei for helping to compile the source materials for this work and both Simon Smith and Susanne Grunewald for their important technical support.

Here follows a binaural version of the work.