Millennium Lauds
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World Premiere: CD Recording by Fu Jen Catholic University Symphonic Band conducted by Lien-chang Kuo
CD Recording by Fu Jen Catholic University Symphonic Band published by Taipei County Government, will be released in May 2000.
Commissioned by the Taipei County Government for the dedication of their Taipei County Feast of Arts 2000, Millennium Lauds is a bright and energetic concert fanfare. This piece utilizes the tripartite formal scheme, the first section is a slow chorale, the second is a brilliant dance followed by a lyrical fugal passage, the third is a bright fanfare that displays Chung's considerable talents in that genre. The duration of this piece is about 7 minutes.
Festive Celebration for Wind Orchestra
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World Premiere: World Premiere: June 10, 1992 at the National Concert Hall, Taipei. Youth Band of China Youth Corps conducted by Lien-chang Kuo
1. WASBE CONCERTS, 1995. KOCD 4551/602. WASBE CONCERTS, 1996. AMOS 5820
Festive Celebration was written originally for nine percussionists and was revised and orchestrated for wind orchestra in 1992. This piece consists of four distinctive continuous sections. The first is a solemn introduction followed by a majestic fanfare. The second is a ritual canon with accumulation of layers and instruments; its tempo is slow and harmonic vocabulary is pentatonic. The third is a vigorous ceremonial dance and is followed by the fourth section, a cadenza for the percussion section based upon traditional Chinese drumming patterns. Festive Celebration was included in the 1995 and 1997 WASBE concert CD sets. Having been published by the Musikverlag Johann Kliment KG in Vienna in 1998, Festive Celebration has been widely performed all over the world by many renowned professional wind orchestras.
Symphonie Concertante for Wind Orchestra in 5 Groups Po Zhen Yu RealAudio demo
World Premiere: World Premiere: December 31, 1996 at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall, Taipei. Youth Band of China Youth Corps conducted by Tscheng-hsiung Chen
Based on the performance practice of the court music in Tang Dynasty, the orchestra is divided into 5 groups. The 1st and the 4th are made up of woodwind instruments and placed at the left and right sides of the stage. The 2nd and the 3rd are predominately brass instruments and placed at the rear of the stage. The 5th group consists of 5 soloists, namely Eb clarinet, English horn, tenor saxophone, trombone, and percussion, and is placed in the middle of the stage.
Symphony in One Movement for Wind Orchestra, Part 1: Frescos
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World Premiere: June 10, 1992 at the National Concert Hall, Taipei. Youth Band of China Youth Corps conducted by Yiu-kwong Chung
As one of the most significant works after the invention of ICCS (I-Ching Compositional System), Frescos was completed in 1995, Taipei. It consists of four uninterrupted sections. "Meditation of Dunhuang", scored only for the clarinet family, serves as the short prelude. The second section "SiIkroad" and the third section "Frescos" are the core sections of this work. At the outset of the "Silkroad," the yang musical cell C-F-G expressed by the brass instruments and metal and the yin musical cell G#-A-Bb expressed by the Bb clarinets and drums. Percussion family plays an important role in the section "Frescos" and its rhythmic structure is derived from the ancient Chinese drumming music Shi-Fan-Luo-Gu. The coda "Moonlight Beyond the Frontier" starts with a fragment extracted from the famous ancient qin composition Three Variations on Plum Blossoms played by four flutes. The composer employs later mostly the solo woodwind instruments to close the piece in tranquility. The entire composition is a musical interpretation of the yin-yang interaction. The procedure of their interaction and development throughout the composition is guided by the explanation of the orderly sequence of the sixty-four hexagrams in I-Ching.
Symphony in One Movement for Wind Orchestra, Part 2: Mountain Ritual DancesTo play its RealAudio demo, click the right button To play its Windows Media Audio demo, click the right button ;
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World Premiere: December 3, 1998 at the National Concert Hall, Taipei. The Angel's Wings Symphonic Wind Orchestra conducted by I-ming Huang
Hua Dih Records
Mountain Ritual Dances was composed in 1998 and was first performed at the National Concert Hall, Taipei, Taiwan by the Angel’s Wings Wind Orchestra conducted by I-ming Huang on December 3rd, 1998.
The scheme of this work recreates a traditional tripartite formal practice. The first section opens with an expressive baritone solo. A quasi-latin dance leads to a 3-part ritual chant for brasses that explodes into a joyous climax. The slow middle section is an almost unbroken stream of lyrical melody for the woodwinds, highlighted by a fascinating and rhapsodic passage for the solo clarinet. The last section is a series of vigorous ritual dances based on my earlier chamber piece Mountain Ritual for Sanxian and 4 Cellos. The entire orchestra bursts in with high degree of violence necessary to make a sharp contrast to the rich and lyrical section preceding. The integration of functional and non-functional harmony and the exploration of new band sonority are the key aspects of this work.