Pas de Deux for 2 Pianos
Title: Pas de deux
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: for 2 Pianos
Left Piano: Euna Min
Right Piano: Gon Hwang
Performed in: 2015-3-31
Composed in: 2014
Place: Sungnam Art Center, South Korea
This piece was composed 2014 for 2 piano performers. For the left piano, I notated everything in detail in the form of musical scores, but for the right piano, I just notated about 10% in the form of musical score. The 90% of the music for the right piano should be filled with the improvisation performed by the pianist.
First of all, this is the music that is trying to combine the two different things. In this case, the radical western European radical contemporary music and Jazz were mixed like the third stream music of Gunther Schuller.
Secondly, this is the first experiment to create the new genre advocated by me which is called "Brain Music". Brain Music is trying to fulfill the holistic desire of human's brain. Here, the pianist in the left side is attempting to satisfy the left brain, and the other one is for the right brain. Many scientists said that there are two kinds of brain in the human's brain, and those two have the different functions and characteristics. "Logic" might be the best explanation for the left one, and "spontaneity" is for the right one. Therefore, the music for the left pianist is logical, strict, and systematic in many ways. The music for the right pianist should be improvisatory, emotional, and free also in many perspectives.
To avoid the possible chaos and make this music more organized, I used center tones controlling the vertical and horizontal phenomena of the music.
Wimbo Diplos for 6 Instruments
Title: Wimbo Diplos for 6 Instruments
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Violin, Cello, Piano, Flute, Bassclarinet, Marimba
Performed by: Ensemble Interactive Tokyo
Performed in:2012-11-2
Place: Fuzonomri Art Theater, Tokyo, Japan
This piece is a song about duality. This character appears first in terms of the instrumentation. The flute, bass clarinet and marimba mean the concept of an sich, intuition, improvisatory, impromptu, savage and Jazz. On the contrary, the other group comprising violin, cello, and piano symbolizes the concept of logic, scheme, nobility, and even European classical music. In this piece, there is no theme created, but only adopted themes exist. The first theme appearing at the beginning was made by the legendary Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and titled Four in one. The theme transforms gradually into the main theme of Beethoven’s piano trio no.1. After that, those two different themes interact each other, and eventually end up being transformed into new theme which become the primary one of it. Mentioned earlier, the main composing technique or motivic variation method is morphing. This can be understood by reminding the Hollywood movie called transformers. Transforming from one theme into another, a minimalistic and active sound occurs through the process. Wimbo is Swahili meaning song, and diplos is a Greek word for dual. Song of duality is the title and the idea of this piece. This piece focuses on the various phenomena happening when two different things met as if men and women met. This piece was especially composed for the founding concert of the Ensemble Dimension and dedicated to it.
Noble Savage I for Piano Sextet
Title: Noble Savage I for Piano Sextet
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Contrabass, Piano
Performed by: Ensemble Die Brucke
Performed in:2015-3-31
Place: Sungnam Art Center, South Korea
This piece was inspired by the famous philosophical concept called "Noble Savage" which is also associated with that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 18th century. It means that an uncivilized individual could be noble due to the sympathy of Mother Nature. While composing the piece, I asked myself about the differences between the cultures. Is it possible to consider a certain civilization noble and the other savage. In this perspective, I was trying to express some sort of a philosophical gesture through musical time and space.
At the same time, I was also trying to combine the two different musical materials. One is "Noble" and the other is "savage". The noble theme depicts the western European culture in a sarcastic manner, and the savage theme pictures the none-western European civilization through Jazz symbolically.
Cliche for Piano, Doublebass and 2 percussion
Title: Clichei for Piano, Doublebass and 2 Percussion
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Piano, Doublebass, 2 Percussion
Performed by: Ensemble Die Brucke
Performed in:2015-3-31
Place: Sungnam Art Center, South Korea
This piece was inspired by the famous philosophical concept called "Noble Savage" which is also associated with that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 18th century. It means that an uncivilized individual could be noble due to the sympathy of Mother Nature. While composing the piece, I asked myself about the differences between the cultures. Is it possible to consider a certain civilization noble and the other savage?. In this perspective, I was trying to express some sort of a philosophical gesture through musical time and space.
At the same time, I was also trying to combine the two different musical materials. One is "Noble" and the other is "savage". The noble theme depicts the western European culture in a sarcastic manner, and the savage theme pictures the none-western European civilization through Jazz symbolically.
Prelude Poem for Choir and Orchestra
Title: Prelude Poem for Choir and Orchestra
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Choir and Orchestra
Performed by: LAKMA
Performed in: 2015-7-11
Place: Walt Disney Hall, LA, USA
This is the third song of the choral suite for choir and orchestra. Originally, this was a Opera performed in Osaka, Japan 2014. The text of the song was written by one of the famous Korean poets Yun Dong Ju during the Japanese occupation period. The poet was brutally murdered by Japanese government having been accused because of his poem. The composer was trying to express the divine sorrow of the poet and the pure spirit of poem itself through relatively easy style to communicate more closely with audience. The below is the entire text of the poem.
Oh, heaven, may my life be
Clear of a single particle of shame
Till I die.
I was afflicted
Even by winds rustling tree leaves.
With a heart that sings of stars,
I will love all dying things
And I must walk the path offered me.
Tonight as ever stars are gazed by winds.
Spring for Soprano Solo and Orchestra
Title: Spring for Soprano Solo and Orchestra
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Choir and Orchestra
Performed by: LAKMA
Soprano:Coril Prochnow
Performed in: 2015-7-11
Place: Walt Disney Hall, LA, USA
This is the fourth song of the choral suite for choir and orchestra. Originally, this was a Opera performed in Osaka, Japan 2014. The text of the song was written by one of the famous Korean poets Yun Dong Ju during the Japanese occupation period. The poet was brutally murdered by Japanese government having been accused because of his poem. The composer was trying to express the divine sorrow of the poet and the pure spirit of poem itself through relatively easy style to communicate more closely with audience. The below is the entire text of the poem.
Spring flows into blood vessels like a stream
And brings forsythias, azalcas, yellow cabbages
To bloom on the hills near town.
As I have weathered three cold months,
I begin to flourish like grass.
Happy skylarks!
Soar into the sky joyfully from any furrow!
The bluish sky
Looks indistinctl high...
Kyrie for Electronics
Title: Kyrie for Electronics
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Tape (none live electronics)
Performed in: 2009
Place: CFA concert hall in Boston
This is an electronic music mainly created with tool like protools under the supervision of Joshua Finberg who is Professor of Boston University and one of the leading electronic music composers. Entire music was derived and built by a single material. It is a singing of "Kyrie Eleison" quoted from a medieval chant. Every sonic phenomenon in this music was direct metamorphosis of the Kyrie Singing sung by a female singer. This electronic music is a lament for darkness of our societies.
Three Songs by Andre Breton
Title: Three Songs by Andre Breton
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: Alto and Piano
Alto:Singyun Lee
Piano:Junghwa Oh
Performed in: 2014-3-12
Place: Seoul Art Center, South Korea
Andre Breton is a surrealism poet born in France. He is the advocate of "Automatism" which is directly associated with the concept of the stream of consciousness. He also had a close relationship with poet Apollinaire who were deeply interested in African art.
It is possible to say that for the surrealism which Breton and Apollinaire founded, the technique of automatism and African art are the fundamental. Simultaneously, the automatism which could be consider as an improvisational skill and African art remind us Jazz. In fact, during the period that Andre Breton was active, Jazz was pretty popular in America and Europe.
In this perspective, the composer chose the three poems among his poems. For the first time, the music was composed for the poems without any plans and logic beforehand. This method is somewhat familiar to the composer because he kind of did it many times while improvising as a Jazz pianist in a Jazz band.
The text was prepared not in French but in English. The entire poems were not used but partly excerpted to be used for the songs. The below are the poems excerpted.
1. Always for the First Time
Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house
It is there that from one second to the next
In the inviolate darkness
I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring
The one and only rift
In the facade and in my heart
The closer I come to you
2. Less Time
Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything,
there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some
others; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them. I've
kept company with music for a second only and now I no longer know what to think of suicide, for
if I ever want to part from myself, the exit is on this side and, I add mischievously, the entrance, the
re-entrance is on the other. You see what you still have to do. Hours, grief, I don't keep a
reasonable account of them; I'm alone, I look out of the window; there is no passerby, or rather no
one passes
3. Freedom of Love
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
With breasts of night
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with eyes full of tears
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
Blueprints for solo piano
Title: Blueprints for solo piano
Composer: Gon Hwang
Instrumentation: solo piano
Pianist: Euna Min
Performed in: 2015-11-19
Place: Ilsin Hall. Seoul, South Korea
This piece comprises 9 short movements. Also, this is a personal experiment of various compositional techniques. The purpose of the experiment means, fist of all, a simulation or training in order to build later works better in more amture and trined manner. There are many techniques and cliche were experimented such as, for example, Jazz, cluster, morphing, Ssian water painting, fratal theory, pibonacci series, triadic 12 tone series, 12 tone triads, etc.