• crossings
A Musical Encounter between Asia and Europe

• MaerzMusik, Berliner Philharmonie, Kammermusiksaal, March 28, 2004
• Konzerthaus Wien, March 30, 2004
• Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, November 19, 2004

Chen Xiaoyong: Speechlessness, Clearness and Ease [commission of AsianCultureLink]
James Clarke: Landschaft mit Glockenturm II - premiere [commission of AsianCultureLink]
Chaya Czernowin: excavated dialogues - fragments - premiere [commission of Berliner Festspiele/MaerzMusik]
Bernhard Lang: dw 13 - “the lotus pond” - premiere [commission of Klangforum Wien]
Pan Hwang-Long: Schmetterlingstraum. East and West - premiere [commission of AsianCultureLink and the National Culture and Arts Foundation]
Heinz Reber: Music for Sheng - premiere [commission of Klangforum Wien]
Tung Chao-Ming: X - premiere [commission of AsianCultureLink and the National Culture and Arts Foundation]

Klangforum Wien
China Found Music Workshop Taipei
Jürg Wyttenbach, conductor

Supported by the Culture 2000 Programme of the European Union

Within a unique intercultural encounter, Klangforum Wien, one of the most renowned contemporary music ensembles worldwide, meets with the Taiwanese silkandbambooensemble China Found Music Workshop Taipei. The intention is to develop a new concert programme consisting entirely of new works for mixed WesternChinese orchestration, designed by seven composers from Europe, the US, Taiwan and China. In Berlin, Vienna and Huddersfield (UK) this programme will be presented to an international audience.

In Crossings, all participating artists try to face the challenges of musical globalization with cautiousness and attentiveness. In the international conference that officially opens the project (Dec. 1214, 2003), they are joined by other composers, concert organisers and music researchers to reflect upon this ongoing process and the dynamics of a new musical language between Asian and Western culture. The transcultural dialogue here is not limited to a superficial form of confronting two culturally diverse types of instrumentation, but rather points at the substance of the artistic process.

Since its foundation in 1991, the ensemble China Found Music Workshop Taipei has become wellknown through its thrilling interpretations of traditional Chinese silk-and-bamboo music (sizhuyue) as well as through its competent realizations of contemporary music for Chinese instruments. On AsianCultureLink’s initiative, the ensemble has been persuing a longterm collaboration with European composers since 1999 that repeatedly aroused public attention (Hörgänge 2000, Music Biennale Zagreb 2001, MaerzMusik Berlin 2002).

During the preparations of this project, the seven composers have agreed to conceive of the Crossings-concert as one interdependent creation in which seven individual artistic approaches are allowed enough space to develop their own tone, paying close attention to each other’s concepts, ideas and visions. The encounter of both ensembles is thus complemented by an unusual teamwork among the composers.

“Non-impedence and mutual interpenetration” (Wu ai yuan rong) – a maxim of the Chinese Huayan-Philosophy – might therefore in some respect serve as a central idea of this unusual collaboration: taking the risk of a connecting but not consuming approach towards each other’s thoughts, traditions and ideas while at the same time respecting cultural difference is evidence of mutual esteem and an intense curiosity.

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