[String Quartet]
Cum Laude Music Award IV Edition. Anticipated recording and release under
Naxos recording in 2025-2026
European Recording Orchestra, August 17, 2023
Released under Pinch Record, as part of “Birds In Dream Land” EP

Program Notes:

String Quartet No.1 is a piece that use the music to tell the story behind the title. There are three movements in total:

I.     Capucine Avenue
II.    Water Lily
III.   Till The End

The music itself describes a certain place and scene. The composer uses the word “Storytelling” to describe his first-string quartet. There are connections between the work itself and the composer’s life. The first movement describes a story when the composer travelled to France and came to a coffee shop in Capucine Avenue for the first time. It draws an image of the Boulevards of Paris. The second movement is a tribute to a world-famous painting: Water Lily Series by Monet. It combines the image of a water lily in the composer’s hometown and the painting itself. The composer wants to use music to show another form of “Water Lily”. The third movements tell a story of parting. It’s an epilogue and ending movement that shows every story has an end. Finally, there are connections between birds and his compositions. To the composer, the birds are unique because they always wake him up every morning to begin a new day. Also, there are a lot of birds “singing” besides the water lily in Beijing University when the composer first comes to visit that famous place in China.

The composer has been influenced by jazz and film music, so that the harmonic language is complex and always has a shifting tonal center. The form of the piece is undecided, they composer want to let the notes lead the form when he’s composing.