Program Note
Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer whose work can be situated within the lineage of the new wave of Chinese composers (such as Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Tan Dun, and Bright Sheng), yet whose vivid musical imagination and philosophical interests place him in a league of his own. The distinctiveness of his compositional approach, first and foremost, can be noted in Liang’s avoidance of exoticized Chinese elements like stylized quotations of familiar folksongs or clichéd treatment of instruments. Born into the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and denied access to older traditions of art forms in China, Liang considers himself raised in a cultural and spiritual “ground zero”. Liang’s displacement from his homeland has led him to intensify his search for a deeper cultural connection to Asian musical practice and aesthetics at large, as his interests cover the Beijing opera, guqin (the Chinese zither), and Inner Mongolian music, as well as music from other parts of Asia. In searching for an appropriate framework for transforming these resources, he often embarks on a sonic exploration of a philosophical concept or idea to create music that contains multiple surfaces and trajectories for the listener to decipher. Liang studied composition with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Robert Cogan, Chaya Czernowin, and Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (BM and MM) and Harvard University (PhD). A Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he held fellowships from Harvard Society of Fellows and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship. Liang currently serves as Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. Liang has been honored with the Rome Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, Aaron Copland Award, and received a rich variety of commissions from organizations and artists such as the New York Philharmonic, the Shanghai and Ying Quartets, and percussionist Steven Schick. Liang was part of a Yellow Barn Artist Residency in March 2013, contributing one act of the four-act chamber opera Cuatro Corridos.
The composer offers the following notes for Lakescape III:
Having been interested in Mahayana Buddhism for a number of years, I went to a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York to study meditation in 1999. One evening, while walking alone by the side of the lake, I caught the sight of a “V” shape floating and extending on the surface of the water. It was a beaver taking a swim under the moon. This image gave me insight into my relationship with silence: underneath the music is a profoundly deep silence upon which I seek to inscribe my signature through sound. It inspired me to compose a number of works, including Lakescape III.