Ning
Item
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Score title
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Ning
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Composer
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Chen Yi
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Program note
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The mixed trio NING was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, for the concert Hun Qiao (Bridge of Souls — A Concert of Remembrance and Reconciliation), to commemorate the little-known Asian Pacific Conflict of World War II. It was premiered by Young-Nam Kim violin, Wu Man pipa, and Yo-Yo Ma cello, on May 30, 2001 at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Chinese character ning is another name for the city Nanjing, the capital of china during World War II. Ning also means serene and peaceful. Remembering so many horrible true stories told repeatedly with anger and passion by my parents, who experienced the Japanese invasion of China, I sincerely accepted the invitation from the CMSM to compose a piece of music "calling the soul back to a resting place," to remember the Asian Holocaust — the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, and to look forward to the peace of the world in the future.
The music is composed in a dramatic shape, symbolizing the sound of atrocious violence and tragic scenes, hysterical crying and miserable sobbing, gripping meditation, and illusive fantasy, performed on bowing and plucking instruments, combining unique styles and performing techniques in the music of the East and the West, in an abstract form and texture.
— Chen Yi
Chen Yi