BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE, CHRISTOPHER LEON
In a normal concerto, the soloist will begin with a familiar routine.
“You come on, you shake hands with the conductor, and off you go,” Jessica Wells explains.
But Jessica has not written a normal concerto. In her Concerto for Guzheng and Orchestra, the soloist Mindy Meng Wang will not enter until after the orchestra has started playing.
When Mindy finally makes her appearance, she will be more than a virtuoso with an instrument: she will embody demons and ghosts.
This is how Jessica (pictured below) and Mindy (above) are setting the stage for the world premiere performance of the concerto. This Melbourne Symphony Orchestra commission will feature in the Metropolis Festival, which shines a spotlight on new Australian music and composers.
Discussing their shared Chinese heritage, the pair reminisced on the folk tales they’d discovered in their childhoods. Some of the eeriest stories found their ways into the concerto – and into the spirit of the soloist.
“Mindy is so dynamic the way she performs,” Jessica says, noting the musician’s ability to turn concerts into works of performance art.
“She’s going to be embodying demons – Chinese, from ancient folklore – and a ghost girl who is beholden to a female tree demon who sends her out to lure men to their death.”
The concerto is divided into two sections, and the first features three animal demons. A scorpion is represented through a cadenza, which is designed to sound as striking as the beast’s poisonous tail.
Melancholy music depicts a black sow, then Mindy will use her bow to bring a “flying idea” to a rooster demon.
“It’s got a weird tuning, so it’s going to sound dissonant and creepy,” Jessica says of the first half of the concerto.
After, Mindy will share the story of a man who meets a ghost girl. They fall in love – and in this musical version, there’ll be “a big battle sequence with the tree demon” to whom the girl is beholden.
Jessica says this part of the concerto is designed to sound more traditional, giving “a taste of the old and the new, which brings the past and the present together in one piece”. The work will also feature percussion instruments including the Lion Dance Drum, bamboo clappers, the fish-shaped Chinese temple blocks, and a Chinese opera gong.
“I’m using all my dramatic techniques of storytelling to try to milk this for an audience experience as much as possible,” Jessica says.
The composer has a history of composing music for screen, and has set the scene for the audience to “really use their imagination” during the performance. Mindy’s stage presence will surely help in that regard.
“She’s got this sense of pace, timing, and beauty in her phrasing. And the way she gestures; every move she makes is like ballet,” Jessica says.
The composer allows Mindy to perform structured improvisations throughout the piece, placing trust in the guzheng virtuoso’s ability to express mood and story without needing the guidance of notes on the page.
“Watching her perform has this beautiful fluidity. But she can also be violent and grungy, tremoloing really hard, going across the strings.”
Mindy also sees the concerto as having a “theatrical element” and says that when she and Jessica talked about the music together, it was almost like they were “talking about a film”.
The instrument itself adds to the storytelling. As well as carrying more than 2000 years of history, the guzheng offers a “very narrative quality” through its wood and strings.
“People can bend the strings when they’re playing, so it creates a very vocal feeling – you can play like a vocalist,” Mindy says.
She also pioneered her own technique that adds a “textural and atonal element, which works really well with the Western orchestra”.
“This instrument has a very expressive nature from being melodic in storytelling, as well as very textural and emotionally intense.”
To Mindy, who is herself a Chinese-Australian composer as well as performer, this concerto is “exciting because it says a lot about Australian society; the diversity of Australia’s music scene”.
“It’s definitely an opportunity that we get to break some ground, be experimental, be adventurous in music-making and playing,” Mindy says.
“But also, culturally it is significant as well… Kind of like a monument for Australian contemporary and classical music to take a Chinese aspect.
“No matter if we look at it musically or culturally, it’s both exciting and groundbreaking.”
Experience the world premiere of Concerto for Guzheng and Orchestra with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Metropolis Festival’s Composing Australia Night One, 7.30pm April 16 in Melbourne Recital Centre.
Composing Australia Night Two will feature works by Liza Lim (Metropolis Festival curator) and other Australian artists at 7.30pm April 17 in the same venue.
READ NEXT: Liza Lim: “I’m very focused, and keen to support the scene and fellow composers.” Liza (pictured below) curated this year’s Metropolis Festival. We recently talked to her about one of her own concertos.
Images supplied.
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