Gobi Canticle

GOBI CANTICLE brings together eleven works for violin, viola and violin, and violin duo by ten composers of Asian heritage, many presented here in first recordings. Performed by Natalie Lin Douglas and Patrick Yim, long-standing advocates for new music with extensive experience commissioning, premiering, and recording contemporary repertoire, the album spans a wide expressive range from ritual and folk-derived sound worlds to contrapuntal studies and contemporary virtuosity. At its centre is Lei Liang’s Gobi Canticle, shaped by Mongolian musical traditions, microtonal inflection, and percussive string techniques. Zhou Tian’s Duo provides a compact, high-energy showpiece, while Chen Yi’s Energetic Duo distills rhythmic drive and colour into a striking miniature. Several works draw on literary and seasonal imagery: Kai-Young Chan’s Echoes of the Autumn Night reflects Tang-dynasty poetry through Cantonese speech rhythms, and Jungyoon Wie’s Dan Poong traces the quiet transformation of autumn leaves. Across the programme, composers engage imaginatively with string technique—scordatura, harmonics, ricochet bowing, hocketing, and microtonal tuning—creating a palette that is both refined and immediate. The result is a coherent collection that highlights individual compositional voices while revealing shared concerns with timbre, gesture, and cultural memory. Recorded in Watertown, Massachusetts, Gobi Canticle documents a significant body of contemporary duo repertoire and showcases two performers deeply committed to new music and collaboration.