曲目介紹
为笛、二胡、笙、柳琴、琵琶、扬琴、古筝、大提琴与打击乐而作的九重奏，是我第六首写给大型丝竹室内乐团的作品，受小巨人丝竹乐团委托创作。在此次的创作过程中，我感受到我的作曲风格已经历了另一个转变，我为本次创作下了一个副标题 “retro-flexion”。 Retroflexion（英式拼法为 Retroflection）字面上可解释为将身体向后弯曲的动作过程，也可指舌尖卷曲顶住上颚回吸发出声音的动作。这些词意也蛮符合我创作时的某些过程，不过，我是将 “retro-flexion” 拆解成回顾 “retrospective” 和反思 “reflective” 这两个单字的结合作为我本次的创作灵感。随着过去几年从美国移居韩国，我的音乐风格受韩国传统音乐和欧洲当代传统（如频谱乐派）的影响甚大，从后现代主义转变为更倾向于现代主义风格。然而，当觉得已被最近这些影响定型改变我的风格时，从回顾过去作品中所蕴含更多的美国传统，又让我再次获得启发。除了作品中这些较明显的典故外，我特别受到 Lou Harrison的音乐及 John Cage 早期作品的启发。其他还有史特拉汶斯基移居美国的后期作品也让我再次获得创作的灵感。
The Nonet for dizi, erhu, sheng, liuqin, pipa, yangqin, guzheng, cello, and percussion, commissioned by the Little Giant Chamber Orchestra, is my sixth work for a large Chinese traditional chamber ensemble. Upon writing this work, I felt my compositional style had gone through another shift, which I create a subtitle for the work, “retro-flexion”. Retroflexion (the British spelling of Retroflection,) is the process of literally bending the body backwards, and is also the process of turning the tip of the tongue back against the palate to aspirate a sound. Both of those meanings are appropriate to some of the compositional processes in this composition. However, I also hyphenate the word “retro-flexion” as a combination of the words “retrospective” and “reflective” in defining my inspirations for the work. The last couple of years, marked by permanent move to Korea from the US, had seen my music become more greatly influenced by both Korean traditional music and European contemporary traditions (such as Spectralism,) as a change from Post-Modernism to more Modernist leanings. However, while I am permanently ingrained by those recent influences, I find myself looking back into my previous work, inspired again by more American traditions. Other than the more obvious allusions in the work, I find myself particularly inspired by the music of Lou Harrison as well as the early works of John Cage. In addition, I am re-inspired by the later works of Stravinsky that were composed after he resided in the USA.