HAPPY TUNE
Chen Yi
About this work:
Chen Yi
Happy Tune for violin and viola (2018)
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, my violin and viola duet is written for Kim Kashkashian and Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, and premiered at the GLCMF on 6/16/18. I remember fondly being invited by the GLCMF (directed by Prof. James Tocco) to be the duo Stone Composers-in-Residence with my husband Zhou Long, along with the Stone Composer Fellow Nicholas Omiccioli in 2011. We have a dozen of our chamber works performed excellently by the outstanding chamber ensembles and musicians during the week, meeting enthusiastic audiences and supporters of new music in various venues at the festival. The experience is truly inspiring. I want to honor the GLCMF, and hope to carry on the high spirit in our new music society. In my duet, when one instrument plays a lively melody, the other would play a vivid rhythmic pattern in the accompaniment. The pair of string instruments imitates the sound of primitive Chinese folk song singing, as well as the Chinese traditional wind instrument sheng, a mouth pipe organ. The duration of the piece is 2’30”.
Version: For Violin and Viola
Year composed: 2018
Duration: 00:02:30
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 2-5 players
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: For Violin and Viola