The Vancouver Erhu Quartet: Confluence

Tickets

Cost: $15.00
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Created during the pandemic year, the Vancouver Erhu Quartet explores the sonic possibilities combining the erhu with western strings. The quartet consists of Vancouver erhu players Lan Tung and Jun Rong, violinist/violist Parmela Attariwala, and cellist Sungyong Lim. They bring together expertise in various genres, from traditional, contemporary, classical, avant-garde, and world/cross-cultural music to interdisciplinary performances. This concert is the quartet’s first performance with in-person audience, and it will give the world premiere of music by Vancouver and Montreal composers Edward Top, Jin Zhang, and Tim Brady.

Traditional music in Asia often has unison melodies played on a number of instruments, but each may be with different ornamentation to complement one another. Edward Top’s “Confluence” combines this approach with Dutch minimalist “microcanon” technique, where a motive in unison is played deliberately slightly out-of-sync to create a delay effect. Tim Brady’s music has two contrasting moods: slow static harmonies and fast polyrhythms. Being an erhu player himself, Jin Zhang composes “Teasing Golden Snake” with idiomatic erhu techniques to vividly depict a dynamic scene of snake dance and the magic of an entertaining snake charmer. Mark Armanini’s new arrangement of his romantic “Night Song” brings out the singing quality of the four instruments that weave densely together.
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