MUSIC | ALBUQUERQUE
The music of missing home: Chatter to premiere
Lei Liang’s ‘Mongolian Suite No. 2’
Performance to feature David Felberg on violin and Felix Fan on cello
The premiere of Lei Liang’s “Mongolian Suite No. 2” will headline a program of his works as Chatter presents “Music of Lei Liang.”
The piece will be played with David Felberg on violin and Felix Fan on cello. Fan’s family commissioned “Suite No. 2,” Liang said.
“This piece is really about missing home and finding a new home for oneself,” he said.
Liang, a Chinese-born American composer, said the piece took inspiration from Mongolian music and their melodies, which are beautifully expressive.
“The questions they probe in their tradition, in their music, a lot of their songs are about home, about leaving home, about missing home,” Liang said.
The Mongolians were once the most feared warriors in the world, he said, but they were also always filled with a nostalgia for home, which is reflected in their music.
He said his teacher taught him this genre of music for solace and self-discovery. The music of Mongolians became a medicine for him, and in turn, he has worked to keep it alive, he said.
“I also engaged in and led effort to preserve Mongolian music that was becoming extinct,” Liang said.
Liang helped release an album with a historical instrument called the choor. It was becoming extinct but in recent years has seen a revival, he said, which he said was rewarding to witness.
The other two compositions in the show are “Mongolian Suite No. 1” and “Gobi Canticle.” He said both suites were inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach. Liang said Bach has a pattern with his music where, in the middle, he has a sarabande, which is the heart of the whole piece.
“The first one I did (was) a little bit of the opposite of what Bach did in terms of structure of a cello suite,” Liang said.
Liang said, instead of a collection of outward-dancing music in the sarabande with the middle being more contemplative, “Suite No. 1” takes the opposite approach, with the middle being the more outward section of the piece. Liang’s goal is to create six suites in his lifetime.
He said he built the piece as a metaphor — this is where home is — and as it continues, the music moves away, like those who move away from home.It becomes harder and harder to hear the music, he said.
“This song kind of drifts away from us,” Liang said. “But something remains that we know.”
Then, at the end, while a shadow of the song lingers, a new piece emerges.
“It’s very much like how we all find ourselves to connect with a new community and build a new home for ourselves, wherever we are,” Liang said.
Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local ϼ Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.