Chen Yi: Off the Hook

BY GARY LINDSEY

“Are you familiar with hip-hop?”

I'm on the phone with Chen Yi, one of the most celebrated composers of our day. “Yes,” she says in perfect English with a decidedly Chinese accent. “After all, I live in New York City and studied at Columbia. It’s hard to miss. And,” she said, “I’m fascinated by the rhythm.”

The rap question came up during one of two separate calls, October 28th, 2002, and led to a once-in-a-lifetime experience which I’ll tell you about later. In all, we talked for about an hour. During this time, the words engaging, effervescent, amusing, gracious and funny all crossed my mind as ways I would describe her. In addition to those attributes, there’s this amazing side to her life which reads like a treatment for a screenplay.

It’s the 1960s. Chen Yi is the daughter of Chinese physicians in Guangzhou. She has a younger brother. Her sister, who was a child prodigy, is two years older. They have a nice home and nice furniture. Mom and dad, who are crazy about classical music, play music in the evenings and insist the kids take music lessons.

“I remember from my childhood my parents were considered international spies because they had patients from consulates and were friends of foreigners. They were also educated and well paid.”

1965 rolls around and the Cultural Revolution changes their lives forever. Schools are shut down for ten years. Families are broken apart as people are sent to work hard labor in the far reaches of the country.

Chen Yi was thirteen when the Cultural Revolution started. Almost immediately her father and older sister were sent away. For two years she was able to hide in her hometown, and her passion for music continued, although quietly. With a metal mute she was able to practice violin. A blanket between the hammers and steel strings enabled her to practice, if not hear, the piano. At the age of fifteen she could hide no more. All of the family’s possessions were taken and every family member banished in separate directions.

“My father and mother told me during the Cultural Revolution to let them take everything because you have knowledge in your mind to serve society and people.”

The vision is striking. Chen Yi, a gifted child, now a young woman who had known only grace and good care, was forced to work hard labor. She planted and harvested rice and carried one-hundred-pound bags of mud and rocks up mountainsides.

“Were you ever afraid you would permanently damage your hands?” I asked.

“Yes, I remember growing up my parents would always tell us, don’t play basketball… you’ll injure your hands. I did cut my hand and a foot once during harvest.”

Physically and emotionally it would prove to be the most painful time of her life.

“People, farmers and fellow workers, would speak against you by saying you were influenced by the western world.” She said that is when she realized the spirit of Mozart was in her.

“People hear his beautiful music,” her father used to tell her, “feel the sunlight and see the composer’s happy face, but they don’t see the tears behind his cheeks."

In the midst of the hardship, something within Chen Yi was awakened by her exposure to the land and those who worked it. Her fascination with the music of country folk grew. She became connected to the earth and the people who worked the fields. These feelings and themes were filed away and emerge in every composition.

It was 1977 when the Cultural Conservatory in Beijing finally reopened. Chen Yi was one of the tens of thousands who applied. She spent five years doing her undergraduate study and three more years becoming the first woman in the school to receive a master’s degree in composition in China. It is also where she met a fellow classmate, Zhou Long, who became her husband. Zhou Long is also a celebrated modern day composer. In the mid-1980s, the couple moved to New York City where Chen Yi and Zhou Long received their American citizenship and their Ph.D.s from Columbia University.

“New York,” she told me, “ is my second home. I love New York people and the culture there.”

But the morning we spoke via phone, Chen Yi was at her home in Kansas City where she was tending to commitments made to doctoral students at the University of Missouri Conservatory, commitments made last year prior to her winning the Ives Living award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ms. Chen is only the second Ives Living recipient. The first winner, announced in 1998, was Yale Professor Martin Bresnick. With a value of $225,000, $75,000 every year for three years, the prize is the largest available exclusively to composers and stipulates that for the three years of the award, the winner must not have employment other than composition. For that reason, Zhou Long, her husband, is filling her faculty position. Professor Chen has signed an agreement with the University promising she will return after her three year absence.

“Do you enjoy teaching?” I asked.

“Oh yes, 100%... 200%,” she replied. Professor Chen is convinced teaching is a magic elixir keeping her perspective young and fresh and “connected to society and culture.”

I was curious to know how she felt when she heard the news about the Ives Living Award. Was it her highest honor?

“I feel grateful. But, every time I receive an award I feel like there is someone who deserves it more… that I didn’t work hard enough for it. It always makes me want to work harder.”

An amazing comment for a woman whose list of compositions, recordings and honors is already long enough to represent a life’s work.

Much of Chen Yi’s composition in 2002 was directly influenced by the terrorist attack on America the year before. Now an American, a New Yorker, she was greatly impacted.

“I sat and watched television and cried for five days,” she told me with
a somber voice. “I could not compose and when I finally started again it had to be about this thing that had happened. I feel it was my responsibility for society.”

Included in the composer’s 9-11 composition is a choral piece entitled, Know You How Many Petals Falling which debuted at the 6th World Symposium on Choral Music in Minneapolis, August 2002. Another piece, performed by the Elements Quartet in New York City, is entitled Burning. Chen Yi’s composition for mixed ensemble premiered in Philadelphia and is called as like a raging fire.

“All these pieces,” said Ms. Chen, “are dramatic and emotional.”

I asked Chen Yi what she and Zhou Long do to relax, to get away from work. She described to me a time they went to Italy to compose and took breaks to walk to the fields to smell the dirt for inspiration. “It takes me back to the fields of China,” she said.

“But that’s still about work,” I said. “What about a real break. Do you like movies?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I like that big fish movie where the fish was eating people and the actor in that.”

“Jaws?”

“I think that’s it,” she said. “And,” she said in a decidedly sheepish manner, “ I like horror films.” Her favorite films? The English Patient and Saving Private Ryan. She says the wall of names makes her cry every time. When it comes to television, she and Mr. Zhou give two thumbs up to a PBS series on heroes in American history.

Living in New York, watching television, going to movies… it makes me wonder about Chen Yi’s philosophy about composing. Do all of her experiences end up in her music?

“Every work of mine reflects the culture behind me from the people and society.”

Do these experiences take her farther away from her roots in China? Does her family understand her work? (Chen Yi’s brother, sister and sister-in-law live in China and are professional musicians.)

“I’ve left them behind but we have our minds and spirits connected,” she said. She told me they are technically capable of playing her compositions but that her music is not their preference. They prefer strictly classical.

Indeed, Chen Yi’s work varies greatly from her husband’s. “Rhythmically and melodically and texture wise we are different. His music is pure, art music,” she explained. “My language is more fluent and closer to daily life. His work is closer to ancient Chinese philosophies and poetry. We both use Chinese elements and styles. He is an expert writing for Chinese traditional instruments. He has written many concertos to play with Chinese instruments for Western orchestras. I’ve written much more for western orchestras. My music a lot of time is dissonant if compared with the 19th century but I work towards a beautiful future.”

Do Chen Yi and Zhou Long collaborate? No.

When the conversation drifts to hip-hop and rap music, Chen Yi explains rap is reminiscent of songs she remembers from her childhood. She begins to speak a Chinese country folk song to illustrate the point and…. sure enough, it sounds like rap. “Get out of town,” I am saying to myself. “Chen Yi, the most amazing and gifted composer in the world (purely my assessment of her work) just gave me a riff to shame P. Diddy.” I wasn’t just surprised. I was won over. We ended our conversation with an agreement. We will meet in February, at the New Music Festival here at Washington State. Chen Yi is this year’s visiting composer.

Plan to attend a celebration of Chen Yi’s music, Thursday, February 6, 2003, in the Kimbrough Hall Auditorium. Featured pieces will include: As in a Dream Two Songs For Sop.(1988); Qi for Flute, Cello, Piano & Percussion (1996-97); KC Capriccio for Wind Ensemble & Mixed Choir (2000); Duo Ye first performed by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Lan Shui, conductor, Beijing, 1986; plus a set of Chinese folk songs and monologue for clarinet. Chen Yi’s personality and her work have been described as exuberant and buoyant, a hybrid of her American experiences and native Chinese culture.

http://www.presser.com/composers/chen.html