Renaissance vs. Contemporary Choral Music: Emergence and Rebirth

A dialogue of voices across time; an innovative spirit in musical art

◎ The classical aesthetics of order and harmony: classic Renaissance choral works

◎ The contemporary language of deconstruction and abstraction: highlights from ten years of Music Unlimited

After ten years of Music Unlimited, Taipei Chamber Singers’ new 2017 album, “Emergence and Rebirth” (破繭與重生), a collection of Renaissance and contemporary choral works, brings together contemporary pieces commissioned over the years along with several classic Renaissance works.

Structured as a meeting of old and new, the album breaks with conventional frameworks in its musical concept, experimentally selecting the finest music from two distant eras. Between order and harmony, deconstruction and abstraction, each illuminates the other’s richness and brilliance. For all the differences between Renaissance and contemporary music, both follow a shared spirit of innovation in their own times, pursuing the boundless possibilities of emotional freedom and sonic breakthrough. This spirit forms the past, present, and future of humanity’s musical evolution: emergence and rebirth.

“Emergence and Rebirth” not only breaks through the boundaries of time and space, proving that the pinnacle of one era is the birth of the next; the entire album breaks out of its cocoon, bringing the beauty and soul of music to life again, awakening a shared experience that endures in all of humanity, and leaving a precious testament for our time.

“The symbolic title ‘Emergence and Rebirth’ perhaps hints at the consistent ideals and vision of Taipei Chamber Singers: rather than the common practice in contemporary music performance of striving to break free of traditional constraints in order to emphasize experimental innovation, it adopts a way of thinking that brings old and new together, learning from the past to understand the present. It moves freely between order and harmony and freedom and abandon, lingers between harmony and coherence and deconstruction and abstraction, letting the two extremes collide and throw off rich, brilliant sparks…

This album perhaps embodies the philosophy of Taipei Chamber Singers: the interlocking past, present, and future tenses that make up the evolution of music, alternating and succeeding one another, again and again breaking out of the cocoon to be reborn.”

— 陳漢金, musicologist

The album was also nominated in three categories at the 29th Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music: Best Art Music Album, Best Interpretation (Conductor or Other), and Best Interpretation (Vocal)!

Collaborators

Conductor / Yun-Hung Chen

Piano / Nai-Chia Wang

Performers / Taipei Chamber Singers