Year: 1997

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: Written for Ithaca College Choir. Text by Meng Hao-ran (Tang Dynasty), sung in Chinese. Several groups of ostinato are brought in gradually in various tempos, accompanying a fresh melody in Chinese opera speech-singing style. The climax brings in tuitti in Choral singing.

Year: 1997

Duration (in minutes): 12'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument quartet, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players

Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, flute, percussion, piano

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: "...another of her fascinating cultural interweavings, a poetic essay marked by dynamic extremes and textural imagination." - LA Times

Year: 1996

Duration (in minutes): 34'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: strs, pipa, erhu, zheng, yang qin, male chorus "The work was sheerly transfixing. [Chen] is not only a master of orchestration, musical texture and instrumental color. In addition, she has the rare ability to manipulate, then integrate musical forces of different characters and sizes. Sealing the deal, she proves to be a master of dramatic shape and form." - San Francisco Examiner

Year: 1995

Duration (in minutes): 15'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: ten, bs, strs. A cappella version: SATB. Text by poets in the Tang Dynasty (LiBai, Li Shang-yin, Bai Ju-yi, Chen Zi-ang), sung in Chinese, in folksong style and Beijing Opera style.

Year: 1995

Duration (in minutes): 1'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: Sung in Japanese.

Year: 1995

Duration (in minutes): 3'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: Korean. Lyrical, beautiful.

Year: 1994

Duration (in minutes): 17'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: Ten songs from a wide range of regions, dialects and styles. Sung in Chinese and local dialects. Sweet, vivid, rich and fresh. Theodore Presser

Year: 1993

Duration (in minutes): 1'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Description: Written for children to play; in Chinese folk style.

Year: 1993

Duration (in minutes): 8';

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players

Instruments: flute, harpsichord, oboe, other, percussion, piano, recorder

Publisher: Theodore Presser Company

Publisher website: https://www.presser.com/chen-yi

Outside URL: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Bn8So8miWeV7L4vO4P6XL?si=0Lcmf_M4RSmLfCnO_-iUxA

Purchase score URL: https://www.presser.com/chen-yi

Description: Chen Yi: Song in Winter (1993), mixed trio for harpsichord, di (bamboo flute) and zheng (Chinese zither), for Ms. Joyce Lindorff's concert at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, in March 23, 1994, sponsored by Pro Musicis Foundation, NYC.

When Ms. Lindorff was invited to teach harpsichord in Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she fell in love of new sound from Chinese instruments which she could hear from the surrounding practice rooms. She dreamt to have a piece played together with those instruments in her recital. As an author of the New Grove Dictionary in women composers, she wrote an item about a Chinese composer Chen Yi, who was about to receive her doctoral degree from Columbia University in New York, and invited her to write a trio for harpsichord and Chinese instruments. A New York based ensemble Music From China turned out to be an excellent Chinese instrumental performing group, promoting traditional and contemporary music with high praise. It's a good opportunity to have this trio Song in Winter premiered in New York with members of Music From China, zheng by Ms. Yang Yi, and di by Mr. Wei Lai-gen. The piece is dedicated to Ms. Joyce
Lindorff and Ms. Susan Cheng, the founder and executive director of Music From China who has been enthusiastically supporting new music for many years in New York.

About the piece: Song in Winter is a trio written for harpsichord, di (bamboo flute) and zheng (Chinese zither). My idea for this piece came from the pine and the bamboo. Such persistent and dauntless trees! Standing in the frigid winter, they are evergreens. In Chinese paintings, they are the featured characters, while in Chinese literature, they are praised as symbols against evil influences and unhealthy trends. I admire their beautiful appearances and their strong spirit. I express my feelings through my music, which combines Chinese and Western musical materials and medium. Using the harpsichord,
an old Western instrument, and the zheng and dizi, two old Chinese instruments, I mix keyboard, plucking and blowing instruments into a whole. The silence between the gestures is like the space in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy. Although I have been living in a western society for seven years, I have found my thinking closely linked with Chinese arts. I merged them into my musical language in the trio.

Song in Winter was commissioned and inspired by Prof. Joyce Lindorff, the winner of Pro Musicis Foundation's international competition for her March 23, 1994 concert at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, sponsored by the Foundation. It is dedicated to Ms. Lindorff and Ms. Susan Cheng, the founder and executive director of Music From China, who has been enthusiastically supporting Chinese new music in New York for many years. The work is recorded in the album Sparkle: Chamber Music of Chen Yi on CRi, released in New York in 1998.

The trio has also been adapted for quartet: flute, zheng (Chinese zither), piano and percussion, for ALEA III, for the premiere concert in Feb. 4, 1994, in Boston. Other performances have included: UC Santa Cruz, 4/19/96; UC Berkeley, 4/22/96; UC Davis, 4/28/96; by Inoue CE, Weill Hall,10/26/96, NY (Kazuko Inoue, Frank Cassara, ChenTao &YangYi); Tenri Cultural Institute, NY, 5/17/97 (w/shakuhachi Allen Nyoshin Steir & Wu Man); by Earplay, SF, 6/23/97
(w/Liu); by Camerata/MFC, Peabody, MD, 2/21/98; CalArts New Century Players, LA Phil Green Umbrella Concert Series,
CA, 3/17/98; Greenwich House Music School, 4/29/99; FSU-Tallahassee, 2/2/07; by newEar, KC, MO 3/13/10; at CUHK,
5/2/2014.

Year: 1993

Duration (in minutes): 6'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: solo instrument other than piano, solo woodwind instrument

Instruments: any woodwind, clarinet

Description: commissioned/premiered by Inter Artes, London.

Year: 1992

Duration (in minutes): 11'39;30'34;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble

Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, contrabass, flute, percussion, piano, violin

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: "The texture is bright and magical." NY Times.

Year: 1992

Duration (in minutes): 16'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: concertos

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: commissioned/Premiered Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, NYC. Uses two enlarged form of Baban (a Chinese tune) as a slow-moving background melody, embellished with groups of notes from Baban and other materials.

Year: 1991

Duration (in minutes): 12'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: gamelan, larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players

Instruments: Chinese instruments, gamelan, percussion

Description: Premiered NYC, 1991.

Year: 1991

Duration (in minutes): 11'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: solo instrument other than piano, solo string instrument

Instruments: Chinese instruments

Description: written for Wu Man, premiered by New York Music Consort, NYC; inspired by the drawing gestures of 8 strokes in Chinese calligraphy; has all the grandeur and technical display of traditional pipa pieces.

Year: 1989

Duration (in minutes): 5'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Description: Written for children to play, in Chinese folk style.

Year: 1988

Duration (in minutes): 10'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble

Description: Commissioned by Music From China; for 7 distinctive Chinese instruments. Commissioned by grant from New York State Council on the Arts.

Year: 1988

Duration (in minutes): 10'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument sextet

Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, flute, percussion, piano, violin

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: "...presents the composer lost in thought about ancient culture and modern civilization; she is also obviously thinking about the parallels and contrasts between the music of the East and of the West." - Boston Globe

Year: 1988

Duration (in minutes): 7'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble

Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any string, any voice, cello, soprano, violin

Description: Two songs, settings of poems by Li Qing-Zhao (Song Dynasty). "...the traditional Chinese glissando and vibratto became various delicate and fascinating expression, Chinese speech became music directly, by singing in exaggerated reciting style." Frankfurter Allgemeine

Year: 1987

Duration (in minutes): 9'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, woodwind ensemble, woodwind quintet

Instruments: any brass, any woodwind, bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe

Publisher: Theodore Presser

Description: Inspiration came from the booming tide of the Chaoyin Cave in the Putuo Mountain in southeastern China, the dull chanting from the Buddhist nunnery, the reciting tunes played by bamboo flute, and the rude, primitive roaring by Tibetan changjian.

Year: 1985

Duration (in minutes): 23'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: choral

Description: prize, 5th China National Composition Contest; words from ancient Chinese poems, sung in Chinese.

Year: 1984

Duration (in minutes): 2'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Description: Written for children to play in Chinese folk style.

Year: 1984

Duration (in minutes): 6'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Description: 1st prize winner of China 4th National Composition Contest. Materials drawn from Chinese age-old dance "Duo Ye" of Dong minority in Southwestern China, and principle of rhythmic organization of Chinese folk percussion ensemble music.

Year: 1982

Duration (in minutes): 23'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, string ensemble, string quartet

Instruments: any string, cello, viola, violin

Description: 3 movements, Premiered Zagreb, 1985.

Year: 1979

Duration (in minutes): 8'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Description: Premiered Italy, 1984."

Year: 1940

Duration (in minutes): 6'39;

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: concertos

Description: Commissioned by Taipei Municipal Chinese Classical Orchestra. Premiered NYC, 1993.