What sort of magic happens when Sheng meets Shō? Our grantees LI Li-Chin (ACC 2021) and Chatori SHIMIZU (ACC 2021) will guide us as we discover the mysteries of these two ancient instruments that are so similar yet so different!

Chatori and Li-Chin unexpectedly meeting in rural France last summer !

“Kirin Telephone”

Before Chatori came to Taiwan, Chatori and Li-Chin had a serendipitous encounter in rural France last summer. Ever since their unexpected meeting, Chatori started envisioning a collaboration project with Li-Chin, a composition for Sheng.

“Kirin Telephone” is Chatori’s first venture into "site-specific music" since relocating to Taiwan. The piece was composed with the intent of performance at “Mineless”, the remnants of a former mining site in New Taipei City, where the music video was filmed there in February 2024. "Site-Specific Music" are compositions that integrate the unique attributes of a particular location into the musical piece itself. While such music is composed with the intention of being performed in a designated setting, performances in other spaces are also possible.

Chatori would like us to imagine the following when watching his new work – “We each have a "persona" for our social network. Perhaps we are a gorgeous celebrity on Instagram, an angry social commentator on Twitter, and a person with "many friends" on Facebook - and totally be a different person in real life. The work is about how we can find and reconcile with our multiple "personalities" residing within our smartphones.”

This is Chatori’s handwritten score of “Kirin Telephone.” We can see the fascinating ways in which Chatori visualizes his compositions on paper.

Li-Chin has expressed that this collaboration experience was incredibly unique. “Collaborating with an imaginative composer with a sense of humor can lead to unexpected personal breakthroughs, such as the hand-drawn instructions to ‘kneel on all fours and play the sheng’ and to ‘stare innocently into the camera with big, watery eyes’ on the score. I successfully executed the former on a concrete floor, however the latter was slightly unattainable due to my small eyes, so my gaze made it seem more like I was seeking vengeance. One-shot filming is a very fun concept to work with, and I'm still balancing the idea of playing contemporary music while executing theatrical commands. Congratulations to Chatori Shimizu for this unique work in Taiwan.”

Refuse to Be Limited by Body or Chinese Musical Instruments
Li-Chin was invited by Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO) to pen a fantastic bilingual article called “Refuse to Be Limited by Body or Chinese Musical Instruments” in the New Vision of Chinese Music section of TCO’s March 2024 publication, 2024 SILK ROAD No.93.
Over the last few years, Li-Chin has courageously stepped out of Taiwan, traveling far and wide across Europe and the United States with her Sheng. She has demonstrated to the world that it is definitely possible to play a traditional Chinese instrument outside of the construct of “just” traditional Chinese music. In the article, Li-Chin also shares her personal experience during her ACC New York Fellowship. This article is a must read! 

Li-Chin LI (ACC 2021) 
Li-Chin LI is a Taiwanese Sheng soloist, composer, improviser, and performer devoted to integrating her traditional instrument into the modern international performing arts spaces, working primarily between Taiwan and Europe in recent years. Li-Chin is known for her ability to apply Sheng to various art forms, including different musical styles, body movements, and improvisational compositions, etc.; she is actively broadening the scope a multi-faceted instrumentalist such as herself can embody through participating in a diverse range of performances and taking on a variety of roles.
Li-Chin completed her New York Fellowship in June 2023. Her fellowship focused on exploring the rich, multicultural and cross-genre performing arts landscape in New York City, observing and studying the integration of instrument performance with a variety of onstage physical movements whilst contemplating how to further break down the traditional constructs that come with playing the Sheng.

Chatori SHIMIZU (ACC 2021)
Chatori SHIMIZU is a Japanese composer, sound artist, and shō performer, who constructs his works for a wide range of mediums concerning space and movement. He plays with the theme of "perspective", often incorporating thoroughly choreographed live camerawork in his instrumental compositions to present non-conventional viewpoints in his music.
Chatori arrived in Taiwan for his six-month Individual Fellowship last October. Chatori traveled all around Taiwan to learn and research Sheng (Chinese bamboo mouth organ) in traditional and contemporary music practice, conducting cultural exchanges with various traditional musicians, aboriginal musicians, Nanguan orchestra and performing artists. ACC Taipei Office arranged Li-Chin as Chatori’s mentor during his time here. 

 

from ACC Taiwan Newsletter | Spring 2024 Vol.26