Man-Ching Donald Yu, Emotional Wave

Program Notes

The piece was inspired by a modern Chinese painting, Emotional Ocean. Just as the artwork, the music displays numerous dramatic wave-like gestures
and contrasts are exhibited by means of extreme register and dynamics during the course of the piece. The music begins with subtle and cloudy context, and
materials are gradually developed and varied while accumulating and saturating in high density and register at the middle point of the piece. Preliminary elements recur after the climax and following these are aleatoric elements where pitches are randomly presented. Soon, abundances of wavy elements juxtapose together and surge near the end of the piece. Generally speaking, from large-scale perspective, the structure of the piece also resembles wave as climaxes occur alternatively at the middle and end of the piece, furthering refining the wavy shapes of the whole piece. Most importantly, numerous Chinese colours are involved in the piece and these fuse with post-tonal materials for forging my personal unique voice.

Duration: 5 minutes