The Tale of the Southern Tour

The Tale of the Southern Tour for orchestra is commissioned by The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Shaoguan City in Guangdong province in 2019. The piece received its world premiere in December 2019 at the Guangzhou Opera House. The work is a musical sketch depicting ancient Chinese story of Emperor Shun’s southern tour which took place thousands of years ago. The piece consists four sections, with each section depicting a different scene. Different compositional techniques and materials are used to build the thematic materials. The first section, The Recall of The Era, recalls the history. This section contains ancient Chinese folk songs to take the listener back to ancient China. The second section, The Fancy Southern World, depicts the landscape of southern China. The composer incorporates minimalist compositional style in the melodic writing, the melody itself is based on the folk songs from southeastern and southwestern China. The third section, Peace and War, is the most lyrical section. It is an emotional music portrayal of “ peace ” and “ war ”. The last section, Sigh in millennia, despite its short duration, is a deliberate punctuation of the composition, using music to imitate the sound of people sighing, depicting the philosophical reflection on the saying “Sigh of the millennium”. The setting of the four sections is derived from “JI”, meaning “recorded while travel”. It is an ancient Chinese literature genre flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties. The writing style is mainly narrative with elements of discussion and lyricism. It can be used to express the author’s feelings and ideas by depicting people, events, objects and scenes. The four-section structure is also designed in accordance with the structure of the classic Chinese art. This piece is not only a blend of the musical style of Chinese and American, Eastern and Western techniques and ideas, but also a new state of original creation, in which the Different techniques and ideas find similarities or fusible points and are to be grafted together.

Name thesis:degree_name

D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music Composition (UMKC)

Grantor

University of Missouri--Kansas City

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Li , Shaosheng

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chen, Yi, 1953-

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10355/84395

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/84395