Fragrant Rain Clouds of Love: For Percussion and Piano

Fragrant Rain Clouds of Love is inspired by the lucid English translation by Lindy Li Mark of the Chinese opera Kunqu classic, Peony Pavilion; its subtle evocation of the fragility and awakening of love found fragile and sonorous musical responses. The work awakens with fragile timbres of lingering metal responses and stopped-piano sounds gently awaken to lush Kunqu-based sonorities, before erupting to climactic jazzy extemporization-like piano sounds interwoven with Filipino Kulintang gong-chimes and soft skin-sounds of drumming patterns. After the euphoria of the climactic moments, stillness returns in transient and distilled chordal sounds as a type of breath in the structure-as if suggesting lovers' tender moments-before erupting again to the main climax, but this time with free mobile sections that allow the players room to awaken in quasi-improvisations. Symbolic Peking opera gong sounds recalling the Chinese opera origins of the inspiration undergird the final cacophonous climax. The work closes with a return to transient metal timbres of crotales and bowed vibraphone emergences, all amidst whisperings of the Young Lovers' Edition Peony Pavilion text-"fragrant rain clouds of love." Fragrant Rain Clouds of Love was premiered at Creativity Unlimited Music Festival at Western Sydney University on 2 September 2016 by Michael Kieran Harvey (piano) and Tim Phillips (percussion). It forms a trial portion of a wider project based on Chinese opera being developed with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble.