SOLO III for sheng solo

I had the first contact with Wu Wei and the sheng in 2009 in Amsterdam through the Atlas Ensemble and a new music world opened to me: I discovered the magic sound of this instrument with its stunning versatility that combines the characteristics of a wind instrument together with the possibility to produce complex harmonic textures.  Although belonging to a very connoted music tradition, the sheng is not overwhelmed by that; on the contrary, its flexibility fits very well with the needs of a contemporary composer as I am and, with the huge catalogue of its different techniques, becomes an ideal ‘new’ tool to work with. I have made two versions of SOLO III, a first one that was premièred in Tokyo on the December 25th, 2012 and in Berlin Tag’ class=’berlin-en-2’>Berlin on February 2013 but not more existing, and this one that was premièred in the Composers Festival in Krakow on the April 2015. The piece is made up of five parts in the following sequence:

I – Gesti 1

  II – Melos 1

 III – Figura

   IV – Melos 2

 V – Gesti 2

The musical gesture is the main object of sections I, III, V, a feature much prevailing in the original tradition of this instrument while the sections II and IV are devoted to the melodic aspect broadly speaking, the ‘melos’ conceived as the halo and the residual leftover of an absent melody. SOLO III is part of a series of solo compositions dedicated to specific performers and focused on the research of music spaces within the limits of a single instrument.