Music Unlimited IV: “Shadow · Play Song” (影子・戲歌)

Included in “Chinese Choral Music Anthology: Music Unlimited IV.”

About the Work

“Shadow · Play Song” is a work for large a cappella mixed choir and a quartet positioned off the stage. Inspired by Malaysian shadow puppetry, its text superimposes two Malay poems sung simultaneously: one a traditional short Malay poem, the other an excerpt from “Song in Memory of the Old Banyan Tree Murdered in the City” by the late celebrated Malaysian poet Datuk Dr. Usman Awang. I chose these two poems to embody their spirit of environmental care and artistic heritage.

Throughout the piece, four choir members stand off the stage, surrounding the audience as they sing while playing crystal glasses of different pitches, evoking the faint flame that, like a soul, creates the shadows in shadow puppetry. The choral lines at times murmur and at times rise and fall as they chant the Malay verses, while some voices accompany with “Ding, Dung, Dang, Deng” in the manner of a gamelan ensemble. Near the end, all the singers on stage play small wind chimes in their hands as they sing, slowly walking off the stage to surround the audience as the lights dim. In darkness and silence, the choir leads the audience into a state of self-forgetting with the faint, starlike sound of the wind chimes and the rubbed crystal glasses.

Text: Kee Yong Chong