About This Project

“A Chinese Triptych” was composed with recordings from an extensive sound documentary made by the artist in the Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Wuxi, Harbin and Beijing during 2017. The piece overlaps sonic events from the rural, the industrial and the digital China in a single flowing musical discourse, attempting to represent the full-range of highly contrasting ways of living in China. The piece lasts exactly 6 minutes, a number given in China the connotation of events “flowing smoothly”.

The form and proportion of the parts is inspired by the triptych, an art format comprised of three thematically-interrelated parts in which the middle panel is usually the largest. “A Chinese Triptych” features an experimental application in acousmatic music of the motivic-through composition technique, also known as thematic development.