SKU: PR.114417130

ISBN 9781491110409. UPC: 680160626687. 9x12 inches.

A recipient of the New Music USA 2013 Live Music For Dance Award commissioning grant, Not Alone is inspired by the ancient Chinese poet Li Bai's poem Drinking Alone under the Moon with the Shadow. The premiere was given on April 26, 2014 by the PRISM Quartet with the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, which commissioned the work to celebrate its 25th Anniversary NYC Season. From the Program Note by Matthew Levy (The PRISM Quartet), Not Alone (2014) is an interdisciplinary work...but it stands alone in a chamber music setting. The work spans a stunning range of textures, from introspective solos for each of the four saxophones to majestic hyper-active gestures. The PRISM Quartet recorded Not Alone for a 2017 release on XAS Records titled Paradigm Lost. But we're excited for a wider community of saxophonists to embrace the work, and share it with their own audiences. Not Alone is published together with Happy Birthday to PRISM, a brief miniature that Chen Yi wrote for the quartet's 20th anniversary celebration in 2004. For advanced performers._________________________Text from the scanned back cover:NOT ALONE for Saxophone QuartetHAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PRISM for Saxophone QuartetNot Alone is a 14-minute saxophone quartet and dance score inspired by the ancient Chinese poet Li Bai’s “Drinking Alone under the Moon with the Shadow.” The expansively-textured sax quartet matches the exploratory and dramatic movements and gestures in the dance. NOT ALONE was commissioned by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company which premiered the work in collaboration with the PRISM Quartet. Also included in this publication is Chen Yi’s fascinating take on “Happy Birthday to You,” composed in celebration of Prism’s 25th anniversary season.
A recipient of the New Music USA 2013 Live Music For Dance Award commissioning grant, Not Alone is inspiredby the ancient Chinese poet Li Bai’s poem “Drinking Alone under the Moon with the Shadow.” The premierewas given on April 26, 2014 by the PRISM Quartet with the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, which commissioned thework to celebrate its 25th Anniversary NYC Season. Program Note by composer Chen YiThe original inspiration for this work for both the choreographer and the composer came from the Tang Dynasty poem - Alone Under the Moon by Li Bai. The poem describes the poet being alone in a garden. The moon and his shadow became his companions that night. The choreographer brings this idea to modern life in an urban setting. She created a series of “mindscapes” which are the result of the exploration of the different mental and physical states of being alone.Through self-examination, the choreographer raises the question: are we ever really alone? Our physical being may be standing by itself, but what about our introspective self? When we are still, we let our thoughts pass by like flowing water. If we could engage with our shadows, what would it be like?Program Note by Matthew Levy, The PRISM QuartetThe PRISM Quartet has commissioned a great many composers since our founding days in 1984. Chen Yi is among ahandful of our very favorites, and one to whom we’ve returned time and time again. Her music is powerful, expansive,intimate, and draws connections between Eastern and Western, ancient and modern traditions in a voice all her own.Chen Yi has written or adapted four works for the PRISM Quartet. She penned a wonderful miniature called HappyBirth day to PRISM to celebrate the ensemble’s 20th anniversary back in 2004 (Dedication, Innova Recordings).We subsequently commissioned her to compose Septet (2008) for Erhu, Pipa, Percussion, and Saxophone Quartet(2008), premiered and recorded with the New York ensemble Music From China (Antiphony, Innova Recordings 2010).In 2015, the PRISM Quartet performed and recorded (XAS Records) a new version of her saxophone quartet concerto,BA YIN, with the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble under the baton of Steven Davis (originally writtenfor the Rascher Quartet and scored for saxophones and string orchestra.).Finally, Not Alone (2014) is an interdisciplinary work written for the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company with the PRISMQuartet, but it stands alone in a chamber music setting. The work spans a stunning range of textures, from introspectivesolos for each of the four saxophones to majestic hyper-active gestures. The PRISM Quartet recorded Not Alonefor a 2017 release on XAS Records titled Paradigm Lost. But we’re excited for a wider community of saxophonists toembrace the work, and share it with their own audiences.In his liner notes for the recording, WNYC’s John Schaefer writes: “As with much of her music, Chen employs percussiveeffects and glissandi; in Chinese music these are not considered “extended techniques” or special effects, but animportant part of the performer’s arsenal. Here, they help create the twilit mood of the opening moments. The piecesoon becomes more dramatic, suggesting the arrival of the drinker’s companions (real or imagined) and his or herincreasingly garrulous outbursts. Passages of consonance and discord can easily be heard as companionable singingand bouts of drunken argument. The piece bustles along on a kind of restless energy, until, finally, that restlessnesssubsides, giving way to a gently humorous ending where a short falling phrase signals the drinker falling asleep.”.

SKU: HL.14032285

ISBN 9780711927445.

Scored for Piccolo, Horn, Trombone, 2 Violas, 2 Cellos and 2 Percussionist.

SKU: SU.80111701

Prometheus was composed in the spring of 1975 during my stay in Munich. The work was conceived as a complete scene for my opera, also called Prometheus, in which the percussionists are on stage as the main actors. With the help of dancers, projections, and a dazzling array of lighting effects, the opera re-enacts the story of Prometheus. Earlier and later in the opera there are singing soloists and a chorus, and an orchestra of many brass and wind instruments added to the percussion. Strings are used only for a few lyrical sections. The percussion group is made up of six players, five of whom are surrounded by a large phalanx of drums, cymbals, gongs, bells, wood, skin, metal and mallet instruments. The slide whistle is even used to suggest the wind on the high mountain that Prometheus is chained to. The sixth player is represented by the four timpani, and is somewhat set apart from the others because he is the musical image of the hero--Prometheus. The timpani cadence is the high point of the scene, with the lighting throwing everything on the stage into a silhouette, except for the face and hands of the timpanist. The work is built around the concept of a God choosing to bring fire and energy to mankind; he imparts the gift of work and the freedom for man to choose his own destiny. The five big bass drums explode in stretto-like passages suggesting the anger of the Gods. Ultimately Prometheus is punished, but man once tasting freedom, becomes the winner. Prometheus was composed under a Guggenheim Fellowship and was first performed by Paul Price's Manhattan School Percussion Ensemble in 1976.Percussion Ensemble (6 players) Duration: 13’30 Composed: 1975 Published by: Soundspells Productions.