To bring China’s ancient bell culture into the twenty-first century, we commissioned three composers to create illustrated soundscapes that make inventive use of the sounds of our six-bell set.
Hugh Livingston, a cellist and composer living in Oakland, California, put the voiceless bells back into conversation.
Alternating piano gestures and bell tones create a sense of opposition, disconnect, and anticipation. Drone tones derived from the decaying bell tones sustain the bridge across time. The visual component of the composition spins threads of color which modulate with the richness of the overtones, gently blowing in a breeze as the bells’ subtlety is given a graphic presence.
Norman Lowrey, Professor Emeritus of Music at Drew University in New Jersey, is an unabashed animist. His soundscape evokes a powerful connection between the bells and nature.
After initially thinking that serious enhancement of the tone samples was necessary, I’ve decided to apply very little, coming to appreciate the gritty and even earthy sound that was either the result of the bells themselves or the recording quality, or both. The sound of the bells provides an excellent resource for helping to reveal the sacred essence in the mundane Northern New Jersey landscape in which I reside.
Doug Van Nort, an artist, researcher, composer, and improviser, is Canada Research Chair at York University in Toronto.
In this piece, all sounds are purely derived from the bell set. I chose to focus on extending harmonic layers drawn from the bells, with rhythms that arise both from looping the bells as well as extending the inner textural quality of the bell sound itself. The visuals by my collaborator, Elysha Poirier, augment this approach by focusing on an impressionistic styling that is both driven by the sound and hints at the physical properties of the bells.