Tuesday Night New Music: Jia, Cao, Kim, Gu, Ha, Duan, Yao
The newest works from the next generation of composers.
Tuesday Night New Music is a student-run, faculty-supervised concert series directed by student composers Andrew Minoo Dixon '23 and ChangJin Ha ’24 under the supervision of composition chair Michael Gandolfi.
Access the concert program in our digital archive.
This is an in-person event with a private stream available to the NEC community here: https://necmusic.edu/live.
Tiangfang Jia | The Touch III (2022)
Program note
The Touch is my series of music and technology works. The Touch III is composed for two performers. These performers touch each other’s skin, which completes a circuit and generates an electric signal. The signal then triggers music. In The Touch III, the floor is equipped with a conductive metal foil arranged in the shape of Tai Chi. The black area and the white area are connected to a circuit. When the performers touch each other, the circuit is completed and music is generated.
– Tiangfang JiaArtists- Litha Ashforth, Emmett Mathison, performers
Xiaowei Cao | Four Sentences (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Not Speak) (2022)
Program note
I was instructed not to speak, so the musical becomes non-musical.
Words become metaphors.
Boxes are messengers.
And the unreachable is amplified.
– Xiaowei CaoArtists- Dorson Chang, Xiaoqing Yu, violin
- Patrick Kwong, viola
- Lexine Feng, cello
Jaegone Kim | Paperecord (2022)
Program note
The United States Environmental Protection Agency states paper and cardboard materials represent the largest component of municipal solid waste.
–Jaegone KimArtists- Minoo Dixon, Changjin Ha, Jaegone Kim, performers
Didi Gu | A Portrait, a Relic, and My Green Striped Dress (2022)
Program note
For my grandpa Yishan Gu, my grandma Shufang Zhang, and my grandma Fanglian Yu.
– Didi GuArtists- Anne Chao, flute
Changjin Ha | from Viola Sonata No. 1 (2018)
II. Lento inquieto
III. Innocently and scatteringArtists- Junghyun Ahn, viola
- Changjin Ha, piano
Yuxin Duan | Music for Solo Cello (2022)
Program note
Two short movements of Music for Solo Cello are each composed on some principles of the sonata form. Intervals (seconds and thirds) in Adagio non troppo substitute for key areas and develop, through designed "modulations", into other, purer intervals. Allegro molto, on the other hand, retains tone centers but avoids consistency outside a rondo theme, hence complementing absent principles from the first movement. The return of a first movement theme then tries to capture this relationship and hint at a greater sonata form themed by its very formal elements. I also try to explore the richness of texture and color on the instrument through formal choices.
– Yuxin DuanArtists- Jonah Kernis, cello
Yi Yao | Heaving Mountain in the Sea (2022)
Program note
Heaving mountain in the sea,
Whale, I heard you
Grieving.
Great whale, crying for your life,
Crying for your kind, I knew
How we would use
Your dying:
Lipstick for our painted faces,
Polish for our shoes.
Tumbling mountain in the sea,
Whale, I heard you
Calling.
Bird-high notes, keening, soaring:
At their edge a tiny drum
Like a heartbeat.
We would make you
Dumb.
In the forest of the sea,
Whale, I heard you
Singing.
Singing to your kind.
We’ll never let you be.
Instead of life we choose
Lipstick for our painted faces,
Polish for our shoes.
--Kit Wright, The Song of the WhaleArtists- Guangcong Chen, alto saxophone
- Nga ieng Sabrina Lai, percussion