On & Between: New Music for Pipa & Western Ensembles Lin Ma & Zhen Chen

• Zhen Chen:
• 1 Arrival 03:55
• 2 Good Morning, the City 03:06
• 3 Dancing in the Rain 02:49
• 4 On the Roof 04:56
• 5 Lost in the Midtown 03:12
• 6 Lullaby 03:59
• 7 Encounter 03:07
• 8 Cocktails 04:21
• 9 Walk on the Fifth 03:32
• 10 Harmony 04:00
• Total Runtime 36:57

Info for On & Between: New Music for Pipa & Western Ensembles

U.S. immigrants live in the dualities of cultures and identities. ON & BETWEEN is a musical exploration of the dualities and the accompanying anticipation, agony, pride and compromise – poignantly capturing the states of mind of an immigrant on the journey of home-seeking and assimilation.

Award winning composer Zhen Chen explores new possibilities by weaving traditional Chinese music instruments and folk tone with piano and Western style chamber music. A sweeping and at times epic recording, ON & BETWEEN is a masterstroke of sophisticated storytelling performed by a stellar ensemble of musicians.

Played by Lin Ma, the solo instrument and protagonist on this recording is the pipa (Chinese Lute), a traditional musical instrument with more than two thousand years of history. Collaborating artists include Grammy-nominees Cho-Liang Lin and Elmira Darvarova (violin), Manhattan School of Music’s David Geber (cello), the New York Philharmonic’s Liang Wang (oboe) and Howard Wall (French horn), MET Orchestra’s Shenghua Hu (violin) and Milan Milisavljević (viola). Jazz musicians Braxton Cook (saxophone) and Curtis Nowosad (drums) add yet another dimension to this multilayered recording.

ON & BETWEEN’s first track, “Arrival,” deftly references the “Going Home” theme from the second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony to display the solemn respect and sense of promise the United States places in the hearts of new immigrants. The rolling piano figures and long cello phrases combine render a scene of the gradual landing of an airplane and the beginning of new life and discovery.

“Lost in the Midtown” bursts forth with inspired personification of each instrument as they create a tango inspired arrangement depicting an immigrant’s fight against social institutions. The monotony of the cello represents a cold, harsh institutional structure, while the pipa displays an immigrant’s sense of stress and panic in navigating political bureaucracy. The music contracts into a vertigo like quiet section spreading out into a rapid glissando articulating depression, anguish, and helplessness.

As the recording unfolds, we discover love at first sight (“Encounter”), the NYC nightlife (“Cocktails”), and a jazzy stroll through the city on “Walk on the Fifth” displaying our protagonist’s increased comfort in their new home.

ON & BETWEEN’s concluding track, “Harmony,” revisits the opening “Going Home” motif. This time, played on the pipa, the foreign becomes familiar. Subtly showing the immigrant’s adoption of their new home while bringing the entire recording to a wholly satisfying and affirming close.

Lin Ma, chinese lute
Cho-Liang Lin, violin
Elmira Darvarova, violin
David Geber, cello
Liang Wang, oboe
Howard Wall, French horn
Shenghua Hu, violin
Milan Milisavljevi, viola
Braxton Cook, saxophone
Curtis Nowosad, drums

Lin Ma
is a Chinese pipa artist residing in New York City. She is among the top ten pipa masters accredited by China Central Television and is frequently featured in China Central Television’s flagship music program Elegant Chinese Music. She has performed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Spain, Austria, Italy, Germany, France and Italy among others, and has been lauded by audience around the world. The music video of The Misty Rain of Jiangnan, one of her hit recordings, has been viewed over 10 million times across music streaming platforms, such as Youtube, Tencent Video, Sohu Video, and Youku.

Ms. Ma is the first Chinese folk instrumentalist who has been invited to perform at the Capital Hill in Washington D.C. and hold a pipa recital at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City. As an active music envoy that bridges cultures, she has collaborated with United Nations Peace Concert and Renwen Society of China Institute in New York City to promote Chinese music and culture.

Lin Ma has been the top prize winner of the prestigious competitions for the Chinese folk musical instruments, including Chinese Golden Bell Awards for Music, Wenhua Art Prize, International Competition for Chinese Traditional Musical Instruments. She is a member of the Chinese Musicians Association and earned her master’s degree from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under the tutelage of Chinese pipa master Guanghua Li.

Cho-Liang Lin
is lauded the world over for the eloquence of his playing and for the superb musicianship that marks his performances. In a concert career spanning the globe for more than thirty years, he is equally at home with orchestra, in recital, playing chamber music, and in a teaching studio.

Mr. Lin’s concert engagements reflect his wide-ranging musical activities. Performing on several continents, he appears as soloist with orchestras of Detroit, Toronto, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, San Diego and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; in Europe with the Bergen Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and the English Chamber Orchestra; and in Asia with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Malaysia Philharmonic, and Bangkok Symphony. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Lin appears at the Beijing Music Festival, as well as his perennial appearances performing at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Aspen Music Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

As Music Director of La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest since 2001, Mr. Lin has helped develop a festival that once focused primarily on chamber music into a multidiscipline festival featuring dance, jazz and a burgeoning new music program commissioning composers as diverse as Chick Corea, Stewart Copeland, Leon Kirchner, Christopher Rouse, Wayne Shorter, Kaija Saariaho and Gunther Schuller. In Asia, Mr. Lin serves as Artistic Director of Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and he was recently appointed Artistic Director of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Music Summer Camp where he also conducts performances and serves as a member of the string faculty.

Elmira Darvarova
GRAMMY-nominated recording artist, and a concert violinist since the age of four, Elmira Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) woman-concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Ms. Darvarova studied with Yfrah Neaman, Josef Gingold and Henryk Szeryng. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the United States, and was heard on the MET's live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts and CDs for Sony, Deutsche Gramophone and EMI. Praised by The Strad for her “intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone”, she was featured in a Gramophone Magazine article about her world-premiere recording with the Vienna Radio Symphony of Vernon Duke's concerto (written for Heifetz in 1940).

As concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Darvarova has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She has appeared on the stages of five continents, and has performed concertos with the Moscow State Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony and with numerous European and American orchestras. She has shared the stage for symphonic and chamber performances with music giants such as James Levine, Janos Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Rogé. She performs with the New York Piano Quartet, the Delphinium Trio, the Quinteto del Fuego and the Amram Ensemble. She is the Director of the New York Chamber Music Festival. She has given master classes at many festivals worldwide and is the Jury President of several international chamber music competitions in Europe.

This album contains no booklet.