A Tibetan Prayer for Peace for String Quartet & Cymbals
Exploring the possibilities of your instrument from a non-Western perspective
can help inform your playing
Ethel will be performing this work throughout the 2010–11 season, as part of our touring program entitled Present Beauty. The unifying concept of this program is awareness of life in the present moment. Each of the compositions we have chosen for the program explores some aspect of “the now.” Huang Ruo’s piece fits the program because of its allusions to Tibetan Buddhism—connection to the present moment being a fundamental aspect of Buddhist practice.
“The Flag Project” is a new piece for me (and for Ethel). However, my work with Ruo dates back to 2008 when I first performed his solo violin piece “Four Fragments.” At that time, I was fascinated by his ability to fuse the sounds of Chinese and Mongolian traditional music and the structures of Western concert music into a convincing, organic whole. At first it was not easy to evoke the sounds of the erhu (Chinese two-string fiddle) and the morin khuur (Mongolian horse-head fiddle) on my 1899 Georgio Gatti violin. But, I found this to be meaningful, satisfying work, and I included “Four Fragments” on the inaugural concert of my 2009 Journaling series.
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