TRANSCRIPT:
Brian Baxter
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Beyond the Music. I’m really thrilled to be here with Angel Lam, our composer who is being featured on our upcoming Masterworks concert. We are premiering her brand-new piece, “Unearthing the Heart, the 1000 Grottos of Dunhuang”, commissioned by the League of American Orchestras, supported by the Virginia B. Tooulman Foundation. Angel, thanks for joining.
Angel Lam
Thank you for having me.
Brian Baxter
Absolutely. Well, let’s just get right in. What excites you most about the upcoming Quad City Symphony premiere of your new work?
Angel Lam
OK, so first, I want to say the new title. The title of the piece is called Unearthing the Heart: The Thousand Grottos at Dunhuang. It’s a huge piece.
It’s almost maybe more than 30 minutes. So it has lots of different movements because it’s inspired by a city on the Silk Road called Dunhuang, and it’s grottos filled with thousands of mural paintings and sculptures and tons of Buddhist manuscripts documented and stored over 1000 years of them. So in order to bring all these beautiful paintings alive, we have a dance company joining us in this piece.
I’m working with dancers, and most of these paintings are depicting musical festivities and you see lots of dancers in very, very interesting costumes and they’re also flying and they call them, they call them Apsaras.
And so the choreographer specializes in studying these unique dances and styles from this region of the world, and especially this time period, which is more than 1000 years ago.
And so this is what we’re trying to recreate in this piece.
Brian Baxter
That’s incredible. That sounds like there’s just so much depth and story there. So you referenced dance as a component for this, which is somewhat unique. So we have choreographed dance by Zhongmei Li and we’ll be featuring the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company.
They’ll have dancers performing as a part of your piece, so can you maybe tell us a little bit more about what to expect with the dance as a part of the performance of your music?
Angel Lam
Yeah, so it’s a piece created for different dance styles and imageries. But most of all, I’m inspired by the journey of discovering this whole city.
Um, first I have to bring the audience to enter into this ancient city. So it’s discovering this Oasis in the middle of the desert. And this Oasis is very, very special. It has a crescent moon spring, in the shape of a Crescent moon and these giant majestic mountains that are made of sand, and they’re said to sing songs of sand the whole day and night. So, after we create all that in the music and the dance as well has to you know, bring you there, That’s the opening. And then we get into the depths of the of the content of the of these paintings. Like, what are they trying to tell us about life back then and people’s emotions and what are they pursuing? What are they thinking? They’re thinking about enlightenment and pursuing spiritual truths. So all these, you know, are coming into this melting pot of emotions that’s boiling and beautiful images and colors, yeah.
Brian Baxter
Wow, that sounds incredible. Is there a particular moment that you’re you’re especially excited to look forward to or that that you think audiences would be really should really be tuned into? Sounds like there’s a lot of moments to tune into, of course, but.
Angel Lam
Yeah, there’s different moments. Yeah, yeah, different. Every movement is a specific protos, a specific cave. You know, there’s, there’s 500, there’s discover about 500, but there’s. Likely 1000 because it hasn’t been unearthed. You don’t see you. They haven’t found everything yet. It’s under the sand. It’s buried for 1500 years. So yeah, if every movement is a new painting, it’s a new imagery and it’s. Yeah, it’s you. You’ll know.
Brian Baxter
Yeah, well, that sounds like it’ll be really a fun exploration as an audience member to kind of experience the next, the next grotto. So why don’t we shift gears just slightly? Can you walk us through your process as a composer? I think for many folks, the act of writing music is like a mysterious or, I don’t know, mystical process and so, but every composer is different about how they approach it. I’m wondering how you approach creating new music.
Angel Lam
Creating music. I like to meditate on it. I need to find space within myself cause there’s just so much happening always with life. So I need to find space within myself to let that piece speak to me. I need to hear what it wants to say and hear my heart, you know, come to a quiet, calm moment where it actually is
I’m going to speak out, and then I can start writing. You know, I can hear some things. It helps to be in the mountains or in the forest, in nature helps. Yeah, to to get away from the city. I like the change of scenery, so as an inspiration to change.
Brian Baxter
Yeah.
OK.
Oh, totally. No, that’s great. Thank you for sharing a little bit about your process. And one more question before we sign off. What’s one thing you wish people understood more about life as a composer?
Angel Lam
Um, That it’s a real profession, but it’s super tough.
Brian Baxter
Yep.
Angel Lam
Yeah, lots of demands. If I want you want to know some details. Lots of demands because we are the engraver, the editor, the proofreader. You know, we’re sometimes the producer. We’re also the director. We’re the performer as well and often the publisher.
Brian Baxter
Yeah, There’s all of these different jobs and tasks, and certainly when you’re in music school studying to become a professional composer, you’re learning about these things. But I feel like you don’t really learn the fullness of what you need to deal with and what you need to take care of until you’re actually out in the world doing it right. It’s like a.
It’s sort of like all these jobs that you would imagine being done by different people on like a Hollywood film production, but you as a composer are taking care of them, right? So, well, that’s beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you again for joining us on Beyond the Music.
Angel Lam
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah.
Brian Baxter
We’re very much looking forward to premiering the world premiere of your new work at our next Masterworks. So Angel, we’ll see you in the Quad Cities very soon.
Angel Lam
Yes, thank you very much. Excited.
Beyond the Music: sharing the heartbeat behind the harmony
Beyond the Music: Sharing the Heartbeat behind the Harmony takes you behind the scenes of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra to meet the musicians, staff, and community members who bring the music to life.
Through candid conversations and personal stories, this series explores the passion, people, and purpose that drive every performance, giving you a deeper connection to the symphony and the harmony it creates both on and off the stage.