A lateral approach to cross-cultural chamber music creation

Lina Cao and Andrew Staniland • May 15, 2024

WuXia

for Guzheng and electronics (2024)

co created by Lina Cao and Andrew Staniland


Not your standard commission/creation model


With the encouragement of Brian Current at New Music Concerts, Lina Cao and I began this collaboration with a refreshing angle what eschewed the standard top-down creation model found in traditional chamber music. We began with an exchange to audio ‘postcards’ over a period of several months. Lina went first, sending videos of short improvisations on the guzheng. Andrew responded with electroacoustic audio pieces based on her playing. We gradually built up musical relationship, as well as an extensive audio and video library. As we exchanged these postcards, fragments of stories, legends, and other narrative ideas began to emerge alongside the music. These ideas found their way into our titles, and began to take a narrative role in how we were making and understanding our music. Titles of early pieces included Imaginary Jam Sessions, Dreaming, The Ancient City of Loulan, Drones Overhead, and WuXia. 


Lina Cao. pic: Dahlia Katz

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The Multi Tonic Guzheng


The Guzheng is a Chinese plucked zither. It has not seen much inclusion in contemporary classical music. Lina used a multitonic guzheng for this collaboration, which may very well be the first time this amazing instrument has seen the stage not only in Canada, but North America !


Check out one of Lina's favorite players on the multi tonic guzheng here:


a word on the process from Lina:


Wu Xia -- Ice and Fire, Wu, represents the meaning of Kongfu. Xia, represents the meaning of chivalrous expert. When recording engineer Dennis Patterson helped me record the soundtrack, I initially didn't think of giving this music segment a name. However, when I heard my complete recording, I felt as if the bow in my hand was like a sword in the hands of a swordsman, telling a story... 


I am very grateful for the invitation from Brian Current, the director of New Music Concerts, which gave me the opportunity to collaborate with Andrew Staniland, this great composer. In the past eight months, after sending Andrew some of my recordings, he always managed to elevate my improvised music to a higher level, like a magician, and gave me more inspiration and innovation. The musical insights Andrew gave me were liberating, unconstrained, allowing me to truly express myself with the guzheng.


a word on the process from Andrew


Wu Xia  is shaped out of a multi movement electroacoustic work that is crafted almost entirely of samples of Lina, captured in high resolution by audio engineer Dennis Patterson. This electroacoustic work is composed as an arena for Lina to improvise with in a live setting. No two performances are quite the same, and the electroacoustic work can be configured into a live sampling performance or a arranged as a fixed media track, as you will hear it tonight. We are fusing two distinct but entangled entities: electroacoustic music my me, improvisation and composition by Lina. The result, we hope, is something beyond either of us as individuals. 

It has been an inspiring collaboration where process was just as important as the result. I feel it is the beginning of a special musical relationship, and there is a lot more for Lina and I to say together. 


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Hear the World Premiere Performance

future resonance festival, New Music Concerts. Toronto Ontario,

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