Pan Pacific Ensemble featured on Spokane Public Radio
January 23, 2020 in Spokane, Washington We had a wonderful conversation with host Verne Windham about our ensemble, the music we play, and similarities and differences between Eastern and Western music. You can listen to the whole hour, including our performance of ironhorses, the title track of our second CD, in a two-part podcast. |
Listen to the Pan Pacific Ensemble on Spokane Public Radio |
Mo Suo's Burial Ceremony by Xinyan Li
Performed by the Pan Pacific Ensemble on August 11, 2017 at the Thailand International Composition Festival. Hailed by the New York Times as “bubbly quintet,” Mo Suo’s Burial Ceremony for woodwind quintet was composed in 2006. Inspired by the unique funeral customs in Mo Suo, a Chinese southwest minority, this work depicts Lama’s reciting scriptures to release souls from purgatory, Daba monks’ dancing to expel ghosts, as well as Lama’s cremating corpse which is tied up like a fetus into a wooden cage for reincarnation. |
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Shadow by Narong Prangcharoen
Shadow by Narong Prangcharoen. Recorded Live by the Pan Pacific Ensemble at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington on December 7, 2018 Thai composer, Narong Prangcharoen, writes: Shadow was composed by using the fragments of a previously heard Thai folk song that was developed into my own composition. All of the pentatonic motives of this song can be transposed to several keys without consideration of the phrase. Each line consists of tuneful Thai thematic material, is fairly consonant, but when all of the lines are combined together they, like a shadow of each other, will create a dissonance of bitonality. |
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Kaylvi by Asha Srinivasan
Kaylvi by Asha Srinivasan. Recorded Live by the Pan Pacific Ensemble at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington on December 7, 2018 Throughout this piece, there is a constrained sense of reaching for some goal that is never quite achieved, or a question (“kaylvi” in Tamil) that is never quite answered. Sudden interruptions continuously thwart the growth of musical energy, which is reined in several times before it can break through to the main climactic passage. At this climactic arrival, the main four-note motive that appears loudly in ensemble unison (first appearing in the flute after a restive introduction) has a questioning quality that is never really resolved. After a final gasp of high energy, the music tumbles down, giving up and giving way to a hesitant and forced composure. |
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Feng by Chen Yi
Feng for Wind Quintet by Chen Yi. Recorded live at the 2016 China ASEAN Music Week in Nanning, China by the Pan Pacific Ensemble. The character “feng” in Chinese means “wind” or “the winds,” also “view, folk songs, style and manner…” Chen Yi states: “I use the sound of the five standard western wind instruments to express the eastern feeling of the winds in the quintet Feng, which consists of two movements: Introduction and Rondo.” |
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Phantasia in memoriam by P.Q. Phan
Phantasia--In Memoriam by PQ Phan. The Piece is subtitled: A tombeau to my white cat Kat. Recorded Live by the Pan Pacific Ensemble at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington on December 7, 2018 Vietnamese-American composer P.Q. Phan writes: Pets change lives, particularly when they choose you. Our white cat, Kat, was a stray. She took a year hanging around before she entered our house and made it hers. One day, she went out and did not return, as mysteriously as the way she came. We assume the coyote got her; we heard the howling around. Her absence filled us with emptiness and mystery. At the same time, fantastic memories of her surpass our sense of loss and sadness. Kat’s mysterious, playful, loving and cunning personality has changed the way we think about life and keeps us ponder still. She is the inspiration for Phantasia – In Memoriam, a tombeau de Kat that honors life-changing forces. |
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Check out our Soundcloud player for concert recordings from our performances in China, Thailand and the United States. Many of these works were written for the group, and the recordings provided include a number of world premieres. Enjoy!
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