Mo Sheng 墨声 Ink Sound
“Felt like I could touch the sound.”
—Audience Member
Mo Sheng 墨声 Ink Sound upholds scholarly ideals of self-reflection alongside engagement with shifting realities. Inspired by the 18 paintings in the exhibition 潘公凯 Pan Gongkai: Withered Lotus Cast in Iron, the graphic score contains sonic gestures that vary fingering and bowing relate to the variable densities of Chinese ink painting. The music provides a template for realizing a calligraphic impulse; as brush stroke becomes painting, motion becomes sound.
Audio excerpt
Video excerpt
Score (scroll inside frame)
Details
Duration: variable (circa 18 minutes)
Instrumentation: two violins, viola, cello
2015 Premiere by the Passenger String Quartet
Commissioned by the Frye Art Museum
Performances
January 15 and 18, 2015
Frye Art Museum, Seattle WA
Resources
Pan Gongkai: Withered Lotus Cast in Iron at Frye Art Museum
Pan Gongkai: Dispersion and Generation at Zhejiang Art Museum
Support
Mò Shēng 墨声 Ink Sound was commissioned by the Frye Art Museum and funded by the Frye Foundation with the support of Frye Art Museum members and donors. Seasonal support is provided by Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and ArtsFund. Music was composed for the Passenger String Quartet to perform on the occasion of the exhibition 潘公凯 Pan Gongkai: Withered Lotus Cast in Iron, curated by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. The score was completed during a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.
Program Notes
Mò Shēng 墨声 Ink Sound was created and performed on the occasion of the Frye Art Museum’s exhibition 潘公凯 Pan Gongkai: Withered Lotus Cast in Iron.
A contemporary master of Chinese ink painting and president of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Pan creates large-scale, site-specific ink paintings without interruption, in sessions that often last more than 12 hours. He views this physically demanding process as a key performative element of his work. This is the first exhibition of Pan’s art in the United States.
As a Chinese American composer based in Seattle, Au Yong has a complex relationship with China. His new music translates Pan’s Exhibition to evoke a local resonance. The music will be premiered by the Passenger String Quartet in the Frye Art Museum galleries.
Musicians use techniques that vary the bowing pressure, similar to the textures of ink density that respond to both Pan’s art as well as the exhibition environment through the shifting spatial placement of the musicians. Au Yong’s notation contains precise musical gestures that can be read in any order by the string quartet, similar to how an ink brush painting can be experienced.
January 2015