people & PLaces:
COMPOSERS’ Program notes
The Wind Sings III (2025)
JunYi Chow
“Wind, though unseen, is felt through sensation. Its essence alternates between emptiness and comfort, turbulence and tranquility. If the wind could sing, what melody might it weave?
The Wind Sings is a series of works that sonically explores the ever-changing character of wind. Each piece seeks to depict its diverse textures through dynamic intensities, timbral contrasts, and extended techniques, often incorporating improvisational elements. The music gives voice to the wind, expressing its unpredictable beauty and depth.
Though The Wind Sings III does not depict a specific place, it reflects Chow’s journey as a global citizen shaped by life across Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the United States. Living and creating in these diverse cultural environments has deeply influenced Chow musical language—one that moves fluidly between structure and spontaneity, tradition and innovation. In this piece, the wind becomes a metaphor for that transnational experience: unseen yet ever-present, shifting yet resonant, always in motion across borders and soundscapes.”
Threads strung bare (2025)
bobby ge
Threads Strung Bare is a reflection on the unassuming significance of well-worn, frayed clothes. Growing up, I would wear the same shirts as long as I could, often to the point that their hems would come undone and their seams split apart. It wasn’t any kind of fashion statement; quite the opposite, in fact. Many of these shirts were cheap memorabilia, given out at the start of a school year or at some youth event, and I saw them as little time capsules during years of rapid change among my friends and me. My family and I were always too sentimental to toss out my old clothes even after I had long outgrown them, and so my motley shirt collection has always made the same journeys across the globe that I have.
Musically, Threads Strung Bare is composed of two main ideas: a sparse, almost pointillistic soundworld filled with flared harmonics and wide leaps, and a warm, cyclical sequence of triads in the violin’s lowest reaches. The two, initially separate, blend together, lush harmonies fraying away into spare harmonics and worn, distant tones accelerating into richly felt tapestries. The piece moves between these worlds, evoking the poignant nostalgia of gradually dissipating childhood memories.
All thanks to Clara Kim for commissioning, recording, and helping revise the piece.
Ko’u inoa (2017)
Leilehua lanzilotti
“Described as “a homesick bariolage based on the anthem Hawaiʻi Aloha,” koʻu inoa exists in several forms. . . . koʻu inoa translates from ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to “my name is” and frames a perspective and statement to absorb the meaning of identity. . . . Hawaiʻi Aloha, usually performed at the end of concerts, offers the audience a parting gesture of farewell to sing as one, to be a community connected. When koʻu inoa is performed as a concert opener, the anthem becomes a welcoming gesture rooted in the Kanaka Maoli protocols of first contact; to introduce who you are. As listeners, the invitation stands to meditate on our identity, discover meaning in the melody of our name, and feel rooted and connected to the place we call home.”
— Excerpts from a program note by Dr. Michael-Thomas Foumai, Lecturer, Academy of Creative Media, University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu, originally written for the orchestral premiere of koʻu inoa, April 2022
You are still here (2020)
Sarah gibson
“You are still here was inspired by Mona Hatoum’s artwork of the same name. The work, which is a double mirror containing the titular phrase sandblasted on the surface, allows the viewer to see their face doubled in their reflection with this phrase stamped across their view. Hatoum describes this artwork as a way to spark a conversation with oneself about the confirmation of existence and survival. This sentiment, and the need to talk to oneself about these subjects, spoke to me powerfully during the beginning of the pandemic. My work for Jennifer was a way for me to convey that dialogue and what I was seeking in the spring of 2020: a frantic need for personal expression contrasted with a calmer desire for an empathetic space in which to create during a dark time.”
Second nature (2021)
for violin and electronics
Christopher stark
“2nd Nature takes its title from Cicero’s ancient text On the Nature of the Gods. In this book, Cicero describes seconda natura as man’s ability to augment nature to create a second nature. While the intention of this augmentation has been to grow food and ultimately survive, our disregard for sustainable practices has led us into our current climate crisis.
My work regularly looks to nature for inspiration, and in this work I started with a recording of cicadas I documented in the mountains of northern Thailand. The field recording appears halfway through the work, and I hope that by asking the audience to listen to this beautiful sound, that we might contemplate how to resolve our fraught relationship with nature and perhaps consider a path forward in which nature is no longer second to our demands.”