America The Polarized (2021)
Duration: 2 minutes
Instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, and piano
Commissioner: Center for Musical Excellence, as part of the America/Beautiful project
Video premiere by Siwoo Kim (vn), Andy Lin (va), Nan-Cheng Chen (vc), and Min Kwon (pn)
Program Notes:
The piano part is an arrangement of "American The Beautiful" in an extremely Romantic manner, à la Chopin and Rachmaninoff, which can stand alone as a solo piano piece. This neo-Romantic piano writing is juxtaposed against an aggressive string trio that tries to attack it - a musical version of Lucho Fontana's experimental works, in which the canvas have cut scars. The collocation of these two contrasting layers suggests the polarization in the USA that has become more visible in the recent years; a phenomenon on which this piece attempts to reflect.
Instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, and piano
Commissioner: Center for Musical Excellence, as part of the America/Beautiful project
Video premiere by Siwoo Kim (vn), Andy Lin (va), Nan-Cheng Chen (vc), and Min Kwon (pn)
Program Notes:
The piano part is an arrangement of "American The Beautiful" in an extremely Romantic manner, à la Chopin and Rachmaninoff, which can stand alone as a solo piano piece. This neo-Romantic piano writing is juxtaposed against an aggressive string trio that tries to attack it - a musical version of Lucho Fontana's experimental works, in which the canvas have cut scars. The collocation of these two contrasting layers suggests the polarization in the USA that has become more visible in the recent years; a phenomenon on which this piece attempts to reflect.