Laura Falzon, flute; Zhou Yi, pipa; Xinyan Li, composer; and Michelle Li, cello, performed the world premiere performance of The Dunhuang Lovers at Carnegie Hall on September 29th 2017.
The Dunhuang Lovers, a trio written for flute/alto flute, pipa, and cello, draws musical inspiration from both Western and Chinese music. It tells a love story between the Khotan princess Meiduo, who fled to Dunhuang to join her elder sister after the Kingdom of Khotan was conquered, and the Hanlin Academy artist Fang Tianyou, who was dispatched by the Song government to bring the Buddhist sutra printed in gold lettering to Dunhuang. By exploring the myriad of tone colors and tensions that this instrumentation makes possible, the composer is able to express a wide range of emotions such as sweetness, bitterness, joy and sadness.
Chinese composer Xinyan Li’s music has been featured at many festivals including the Aspen Music Festival and the Beijing Modern Music Festival (China) and her music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, Quintet of the Americas, Orchestre National de France, Chicago New Music Ensemble and many more. Her awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, American Composers Orchestra, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award and the International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition amongst others.