Surrender: A T'ai Qi Cantata
Byron Au Yong
About this work:
To yield is to preserve unity.
The opening line of Byron Au Yong's Surrender encapsulates the message and experience of his work. As the text, music, and movement weave together in performance, one feels viscerally the essential truth that to resist, defend, or insist is to enter more deeply into struggle. In a time so beset with aggression, anxiety, and violence, it is a great joy to be reminded of the wisdom in surrendering: to the unknown, the unassuming, to the collective gesture of creativity and imagination.
The meditative state that this piece evokes and requires holds us in such a gesture -- drawing energy into itself, and then surrenduring just as fluidly, as a prayer for possibility and for peace.
Karen Schwartz, The Esoterics
* * *
As an American in a time of discord, I challenge myself to untangle the complexities, hear the outrage, accept the justifications, recognize the fear, embrace the sorrow, and acknowledge the denial of war, because I am descended from survivors of forced migration. My grandparents fled Japanese imperialist aggression during World War II. I am touched by their hardships as well as ceremonies of healing.
Surrender combines singing with t'ai qi to reach a state filled with strength and compassion, so I can continue to be engaged with my country at war. I use text from the Dao De Jing because of the potential for transformation contained in the Chinese ideograms of Verse 22, by Lao Tzu. These include the character images for missing, confused heart, hands pull apart, sun disappears, claws, chopping sound, crimes of the mouths, and plants rise from the ground.
With the help of lyricist Aaron Jafferis, I merge Mandarin and English texts. The t'ai qi movements and vocals for Surrender are forever mindful of taking the next step.
Byron Au Yong
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:06:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus, Unaccompanied
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: for 24 Moving Voices