Cover Image: Earthrise Over Vancouver Skyline by Alistair Eagle
Cover Design: Melanie Thompson

Song Yun (erhu) began violin and erhu study in childhood. In 1982, she won the First Prize in the nation-wide Instrumental Competition hosted by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, becoming a rising star of Chinese Instrumental music. The song, “A flower 一枝花” that she performed in the competition became one of the most successful contemporary erhu compositions and been used ever since in many erhu publications. In 1983, she won Best Performer in The Erhu Performing Arts Association of Beijing. In the same year, she was admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music as an undergraduate, studying under Master Mr. Liu Ming-yuan. In 1989, Song Yun won the Grand Prix of the Central TV Erhu Excellence Award; this is the top award for erhu performances in the world. She then was invited to become a member of the Chinese Musicians’ Association. In the early nineties, Song Yun went to Japan to continue her career in Chinese music performance and as a teacher. During her time in Japan, she released over one hundred CDs. She also hosted the NHK lectures in Chinese culture on Educational TV.

Song Yun performs music with a profound feeling. With her erhu technique and western violin background, she naturally adapts her musicality to both traditional Chinese and Western musical ways – an ideal intercultural artist. Song Yun immigrated to Canada in 2007, and she currently lives in Richmond, B.C and continues to engage in a variety of artistic and educational activities. She is erhu soloist with the BC Chinese Music Ensemble and the strings mentor of the BC Youth Chinese Orchestra.

Mark Armanini (composer) (b. 1952), a native Vancouverite, studied composition with Elliot Weisgarber and piano with Robert Rodgers at the University of British Columbia, graduating with a MMus. in 1984. In 1990 Mark began composing for various combinations of Oriental and Western instrumentation. Major works included …of Wind and Water, recorded in 1995 with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic and Qiu Xia He (pipa); and in 2003 Incense and Flowers, Rain in the Forest, and Dance of Many Colours with the Latvian National Symphony and Vivian Xia (yangqin), Heidi Krutzen (harp), and the Khac Chi Bamboo Ensemble under the direction of Maestro John Zoltek. These pieces are collected on the album Rain in the Forest, available on the Centrediscs label. In 2000 Mark traveled to Taipei and in 2003 to Beijing and Shanghai as part of composer exchanges. In 2006 he performed at the Nanjing Jazz Festival and in 2007 travelled to Wuhan to study the ancient Marquis Yi Bell Set. During the years 2009- 2016 Mark attended the Atlas Academy, a two week intercultural orchestra intensive in Amsterdam, where his composition Chroma premiered at the Concertgebouw concert hall, as did Decor at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 2015 Mark produced Fingertips to Freedom, an improvised piano concerto with pianist-improviser Paul Plimley, at Sono Recording Studios in Prague CZ. In November 2018 he travelled to Hanoi Vietnam for the 3rd Asia Europe Music Festival where his double dan bau concerto, Dance of Many Colours, was given its Vietnamese premiere. In 2019, he attended the Voix Etouffées European Festival in Brussels where his …of Wind and Water for pipa and string quartet was performed, with pipa virtuoso Qiu Xia He and the Selini Quartet. Currently Mr. Armanini is the Artistic Director of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), producer of the recently released VICO CD In the Key of the World, and an associate of the BC Chinese Music Ensemble. He is on faculty at Capilano University in North Vancouver.

Amir Haghighi (tenor) was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and grew up singing traditional Persian music. He has lived in Canada since 1983. Amir has been performing Persian music and composing original songs based on the mystical poetry of Hafez, Rumi and other great Persian poets. Amir has appeared at the Vancouver International Folk Festival, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival, the Chan Centre with the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra, the Vancouver Sacred Music Festival, Global Discoveries Festival, Inter-spiritual Chantfest, Persian Cultural Conferences and events in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle, Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

Moshe Denburg (composer) (b. 1949), who hails from a well-known Montreal Rabbinical family, came to the west coast in 1982. His musical career has spanned over 5 decades and his accomplishments encompass a wide range of musical activities, including Composition, Performance, Music Education, and Artistic Direction. He is the founder of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO) and has been a driving force behind the ensemble’s many activities since its inception in the year 2000. He has studied music extensively, both formally and informally, and for the past 40 years has been engaged in exploring the musical resources of the non-Western world, creating music that challenges musicians of differing disciplines to work together across aural/written cultural divides, and to find a common musical aesthetic. He has traveled worldwide, living and studying in the United States, Israel, India and Japan. From 1986 to 1990 he studied composition with John Celona at the University of Victoria. He has written a large number of works for a variety of instruments from non-Western cultures (East Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and more), which have been performed and broadcast at festivals and on the radio both in Canada and abroad. He is the recipient of numerous Canada Council grants and commissions. He is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and presently serves as an artistic advisor for the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra.

Night Bird Singing (夜鶯之歌) by Mark Armanini

Night Bird Singing is a classic western concerto, featuring the erhu, a traditional Chinese 2-string violin. Poetically, Night Bird Singing is a cry for human compassion.  The melodic motive is a passionate plea, articulated by the haunting, soulful vocal cry of the erhu. The work, 8 years in the making, is a musical essay in concerto form on the balance between the individual and the power of the many. The listener follows the erhu in its eloquent struggle against the darker shades of the string orchestra, as soloist Song Yun’s erhu artistry paints a dazzling array of instrumental colour: string harmonics, liquid glissandi and seamless melodic lines with baroque-like ornamentation, all transform and intertwine into fresh musical figures.

A dramatic first movement climaxes with an accompanied cadenza, and is followed by an adagio with a major unaccompanied cadenza as the central movement; and in the final movement, a gentle rhythmic dance transforms into a passionate swirling finale fueled by a final accompanied cadenza.

Night Bird Singing takes a classic musical form and infuses it with intercultural content. In Song Yun’s hands, the instrument explores the outer regions of the erhu’s expression and technique. The cadenza explores the intimate sonic character of the erhu including a vivid pungent pizzicato, and strategic placing of ‘bird song’, a contemporary version of a traditional erhu improvisation featuring an improvised combination of glissandi and harmonics.