Carnival of The Chinese Animals

Thanks Andrew for including me in the 11/2018 Month of Music!

The awesome Southern Cross Soloists have just announced their 2019 season, and it includes a commissioned work from me. In February SXS are celebrating the Lunar New Year with Carnival of the Chinese Animals, my new 15-20 min piece based on the Chinese Zodiac’s 12 animals.

SXS are joined by cellist Li-Wei Qin, erhuist George Gao and pianist Kristian Chong, making a very unusual lineup – flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, erhu, violin, 2 cellos, 2 pianos (because SXS already have a cellist and pianist) – plus a narrator!

I’ve decided to include a narration, because most people aren’t aware of the folk story behind the 12 animals of the Zodiac (neither was I, really, until I started work on this project). As with any ancient fairytale, there are as many versions of the story as there are storytellers – so I’m writing my own version, with some original touches added.

I’m alternating between writing the narration and the music. I know most composers would get the text written first – and usually by someone else – but all my experience with text (sung and spoken) tells me I’ll get the best result for me if I work on them concurrently.

So my blog entries here could be about either.

I worked on this music sketch today. At the moment I'm calling it the Noble Truths theme.