Percussionist turns h2o into a solo musical instrument in an extraordinary…

21 June 2023, 13:12

A percussionist, two basins of drinking water, and a concerto that would make rather a splash…

Look at an amazing concerto for orchestra and percussionist that explores the musicality of h2o. ‘Water Concerto for H2o Percussion and Orchestra’, by Chinese-American composer Tan Dun, is a three-motion concerto that makes use of the seem of the splashes, swimming pools and flows of water as a solo musical instrument.

It is played listed here by Beibei Wang, a London-based percussionist and composer with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Malta Intercontinental Arts Competition 2019.

Footage of this concerto has not too long ago taken Instagram by storm, with millions of sights and overflowing enthusiasm for this motivated new music-building, of both equally performer and composer.

For the three-movement concerto, two basins are loaded, and the h2o is manipulated with the use of bowls, bottles, resources and fingers, to create both fragile and dramatic audio effects. The soloist hits and pours the water, and takes advantage of pitched containers to shape the aquatic songs. The work was created in 1998 and focused to Japenese composer Tōru Takemitsu.

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Composer Tan Dun typically utilizes the audio of simple, elemental objects this kind of as paper, h2o, and stone in his audio, with themes and seems linked to the purely natural planet and the atmosphere of his homeland.

The composer’s have story is as remarkable as his new music. He grew up in Hunan, a distant portion of South Central China wherever he labored on rice fields. He began his musical existence by teaching himself the violin, and possibility encounters with musicians passing by means of the remote location led to the chance to master and inevitably research new music.

He is now a single of the world’s main composers, creating songs for movie and live performance hall. In a 2007 interview, the composer claimed this water concerto was connected to the seems and themes of his early many years.

“In Hunan, water was a daily factor with our lifetime,” he claimed. “Every day we washed almost everything with the river. All the old women, they constantly went to river for laundry, earning a wonderful sound, pretty rhythmic.

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“So I transpose those recollections of gorgeous laundry seems, and swimming sounds, overall body popping appears, water dancing appears, water teasing appears, drinking water popping audio, into my orchestrations.”

Sharing a video clip of the concerto on Instagram, soloist Beibei Wang claimed: “Maestro Tan Dun…has been my major inspiration and mentor in my musical journey.”

And Wang does remedy the huge question we’re possibly all considering about the performance. “Yes,” she suggests, “the front row is the splash zone!”