Kawai Shiu (b.1967)
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Kawai Shiu is an internationally recognized artist whose interests and achievements explore the essence of music embodied as sound, composition, performance, and thought. His work in various fields calls attention to music as a portal to personal myth. As a versatile artist, Kawai has received numerous awards in recognition of his work. Composition awards include those from the Vienna Modern Masters’ Orchestral Recording Award, the Rudolf Nissim Award, Frederic Goossen Composition Prizes, the SCI Commission Award, Kent Kennan Scholarships, and funding from the American Music Center. Other commissions and performances include those from the South Bank Centre for Endymion at the Purcell Room, Cheltenham Festival, International Clarinet Course in Spain, Dartington Festival, World Saxophone Congress, Pacific Contemporary Music Festival, Around Sound Arts Festival, and In Midair Festival. His music has been recorded by CRI, Vienna Modern Masters, Ablaze, and Soy Sauce Records. In praising his winter tide, the American Record Guide writes, it “glitters and soars through its concise four minutes” while Fanfare declares that it “creates a surprising amount of drama.”
Kawai has served as the Music Director of the British Royal National Theatre’s production of Euripides’ Bacchai, directed by Sir Peter Hall. A lecture performance co-developed by composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Kawai on Paul Klee has been presented at Hayward Gallery and the British Royal Academy of Arts with the members of London Sinfonietta, and as a part of the Lucerne Festival with the Festival Academy. Kawai is also a published writer of poetry, drama, and musings on music and art criticism.
unassuming music program notes
I am always fond of music for unaccompanied solo instruments, including voice. I like its intimacy and clarity. With the exception of anthem for apep and quartet desire, the present record includes five unaccompanied solo pieces that I composed between 2002 and 2007.
Prompted by a slight injury to his left hand, pianist Albert Tiu developed a recital program of right-hand piano music for the 2007 concert season. la coral de una mano alberto was commissioned by him to be included in this program. At the outset, la coral comments on the implied hierarchic constitution in music, especially music from the Western European tradition. This hierarchic constitution is manifested in register, instrumentation, virtuosity, and numerous other musical and contextual parameters. la coral is framed by five six-pitch collections. Each collection and its variants inhabit a specific register of the piano. As the piece progresses the sets transform, interact, and migrate rapidly. Far from echoing the majority of one-hand piano repertoire, la coral neither imitates two-hand piano music nor attempts to woo the listener with five-finger spectacles. It does, however, occasionally require performing chords with six pitches.
in keinen wörtern singen wir (for cello), night lay on page (for voice), and no un violín (for viola) are three consecutive movements excerpted from the song cycle de stroom, commissioned by Victoria Zinovieff in memory of her late mother Jennifer Ross. Two major thoughts permeate the cycle: an alternation between instrumental and vocal solo pieces in the cycle, and an unsentimental perception of existence and non-existence.
anthem for apep (for horn quintet) was commissioned by my students to enter a competition for wind ensemble. Once again, the event triggered me to think about the issue of hierarchy in western music. Why isn’t there any standard repertoire for horn quintet? I also took the opportunity to introduce the young players to some unfamiliar territories in horn playing, while some others are as ordinary as counterpoint.
The flute has always been one of my favorite instruments and it is also one of the most abused instruments in terms of, on the one hand, stereotypical aerial or 'slick' music, and on the other hand, being subjected disproportionately to “overextended” techniques. Being a piece with large formal structure and intricate expression, spiral à outrance is an attempt to pay tribute to the instrument.
Commissioned by the South Bank Centre for the Birtwistle’s Games Festival in celebration of the composer’s seventieth birthday, quartet desire is scored, by request, for the same instrumentation as Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Reminded repeatedly by Harry not to write an occasional piece, something which is never my interest, desire is instead a celebration of some of Birtwistle’s favorite games in music: proliferating elementary materials, interweaving linear and circular progressions, observing various perspectives of a musical object, and staging musical personae. The game of desire is to transform contrasting gestures within a musical context of incessant variations that reaches an amalgamated final. The title is partially borrowed from one of Confucius’ sayings, “At seventy, I follow my heart’s desire yet without transgression.” (Analects: II,iv)
Kawai Shiu
CD Tracks:
- la coral de una mano alberto
Albert Tiu, piano (right hand); 6:26 - in keinen wörtern singen wir
Ekachai Maskulrat, cello; 3:46 - night lay on page
Katherine Wallace, voice; 5:22 - no un violín
Zhou Yi, viola; 7:04 - anthem for apep
Shi Jie Liang, Liu Liang, Huang Yi Chong,
Chakrit Songtorsrisakun, Liu Zhiguo, horn quintet 3:53 - spiral à outrance
Yuan Long, flute; 16:12 - quartet desire
Li Xin, clarinet; Xu Tian, violin;
Zhou Mi, cello; Jenny Cho, piano; 11:11
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stream and seasons program notes
This is my second CD released by Ablaze Records. If the previous unassuming music had been a double album, stream and seasons would have been disc two because stream and seasons is, in my mind, a mirror or a companion of unassuming music. In addition, both albums aspire to individually create a coherent structure among the juxtaposition of the selected pieces.
stream and seasons focuses again on unaccompanied music. The pair a leaf by far and la rosée fond, along with the other three movements which appeared in unassuming music, complete the solo movements of de stroom, a song circle for unaccompanied voice and solo strings. Commenting on the theme of nonexistence, the two pieces portray intimately a short yet evocative life journey, one of a drop of dew and the other of a leaf. Both pieces also engage ample nuances of murmur and silence which I refer to as the shadow of music.
Like de stroom, some of the compositions in this album date back to a few years earlier when I worked extensively in Europe. farewell bacchae, originally for basset clarinet, was commissioned by legendary clarinetist Alan Hacker, with whom I worked on the Royal National Theatre production of Euripides’ Bacchai. farewell bacchae embraces one of my fondest musical gestures—non-linear/non-circular progression—here as a metaphor of Dionysian possessive power.
twenty six eighty seven was written in Basel Switzerland. One day looking down to the Rhine through the window of Paul Sacher Stiftung, some mental visions, both aural and visual, came to my mind. Two of these images persisted: one of a woman in a white gown on the water and one of an unaccompanied saxophone piece. twenty six eighty seven was a result of the latter aural vision. With no sketches, I wrote out the preexisting piece from start to finish without much tug and haul. I titled the piece in memoriam of composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987). The two extra long and distorted notes towards the end of the piece symbolize the desolation of motion and time, which I often observe when listening to Feldman’s longer pieces. I have yet come to terms with whether the woman in white was related to the opera Neither.
stream and seasons is enveloped by a set of three season pieces autumn palette, summer ligature, and winter tide. All are for a Pierrot ensemble. Being the oldest piece in the set, winter tide was composed some fifteen years ago. It is a metaphor of gradual temporal progression as portrayed by a solitary tide. Three years after winter tide, I wrote autumn palette. Quite the opposite of winter tide, my interest at the time and henceforth was the possibility of non-developmental music, in which, like a painter’s palette, random colors in deceptive chaos are revealed instantaneously. Since autumn palette, it has been my inclination to create a collection of the four seasons to document my shifting musical predilections. I was curious to see how different (and similar) the pieces would be as a result of the distance—time and psychological space—between them. A decade after autumn palette, my immediate interest in summer ligature was the idea of approximate alignment and vertical relationship in music. The ligature is represented by an uninterrupted piano continuum; other instruments interject variations of the musical crux into this interlude.
jade luster for two pianos serves as an extended coda for the album. As a continuing fascination with propinquity, jade luster investigates simultaneity and minute variation in music. The two pianists read from two closely related laptop movie-scores without the traditional “deliberate synchronization” of most piano duo repertoires.
If life is a travelogue, stream and seasons will be a chapter of two interweaving stories in which all who have contributed are the main characters. For this, I thank them dearly.
—kawai shiu
a leaf by far
take bright light of the sun
glaring through my almost symmetric body
seven points with veins passing
unintentional radiant lines
thousands and millions
before my eyes another millions
just as i
as i flutter
as the wind blows
high and low all of the remains
four years thirteen months nine days eight nights
a snap a snap
floating
a leaf leaving
onto the soil
sleeping
drying as mishap
sip the bone with laughter
cripple crawl
look upon a trunk
with thousands of millions
close my eyes
rest
a leaf
CD Tracks:
- autumn palette
Kelly Loh Bao Yun, flute; Li Hanqi, clarinet;
Wu Na, piano; Jiang Lele, violin; Hsieh Meng Feng, cello;
Kawai Shiu, conductor; 2:26 - farewell bacchae
Li Xin, clarinet; 11:01 - a leaf by far
Katherine Wallace, voice; 5:33 - summer ligature
Kelly Loh Bao Yun, flute; Li Hanqi, clarinet;
Wu Na, piano; Jiang Lele, violin; Hsieh Meng Feng, cello;
Kawai Shiu, conductor; 3:08 - la rosée fond
Xiaoxiao Qiang, violin; 7:33 - twenty six eighty seven
Dan Gelok, alto saxophone; 9:11 - winter tide
Kelly Loh Bao Yun, flute; Li Hanqi, clarinet;
Wu Na, piano; Jiang Lele, violin; Hsieh Meng Feng, cello;
Kawai Shiu, conductor; 4:27 - jade luster
Low Shao Suan, Low Shao Ying, piano; 12:10
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