recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony and Music Director Louis Langrée – earned
him a GRAMMY Award nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in
2018. Born in 1981, Zhou came of age in a new China marked by economic reforms,
and was in the United States by his 20th birthday. Trained at the Curtis Institute of
Music, Juilliard School and University of Southern California, he studied with Jennifer
Higdon, Christopher Rouse and Stephen Hartke. He is Associate Professor of
Composition at Michigan State University College of Music.
Trade Winds, conjures up
balmy weather, the lapping of the waves on the sand, through a double-meter
illustrate textual images in an almost too-old fashioned way. The choral writing
throughout is direct: four-part harmony, with instantly appealing melodies and
few minutes into the piece we are ready for “real” words, a simple story and some
gentle breezes. The houses the poet describes are tiny and white, so the notes are
Although Zhimo Xu’s poem, Fortuitousness, seems quite ancient, it dates from the
turn of the 20th century. The poem, which gives shape to the second movement,
is itself romantic, dark and low. The music only reaches for higher climes with the
text, “It’s nice for you to remember.” Sopranos and altos echo the sinuous curves
of the thirds of the tenor and bass melodic lines. The tiniest hint of Fleetwood Mac
(from the 70s) at the close of the movement reminds us that a very old text can be
enlightened in a very up-to-date way.
The last movement, Strange how we can walk (in L.A.), is, in fact, totally current, up-todate,
provocative and jazzy. If the music is hard-driven and down to earth, the poem
is post-modern, you might say, with a certain shrug and wink implied even in the
the words, “Strange how we can walk into new light each morning.” The day turns
diagnosis.
So where does this leave the listener at the end of the cycle? Curiously, perhaps,
with a desire to hear all three pieces again, but this time going from the end to the
beginning – in retrograde, to use a technical musical term. What if the so-called
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