Category: Reflection

September 29, 2023;
Forecast for Manhattan: Heavy rains all day

Friday night was the eighth full moon of the lunar year, the Mid-autumn Festival. It not only rained all day. It poured. New Yorkers were told to “shelter in place,” a familiar phrase that we had gotten used to hearing since COVID shutdown.

Luckily, I had no specific plans for the day and had plenty of supplies. So, I stayed in and worked on my projects while listening to the rain.

The rain was so heavy that I could hear it with all the windows shut. Then, there was the sound of water trickling down from the bathroom ceiling of my top-floor co-op apartment. The stubborn leaks had been there for weeks. The continuous precipitation only encouraged it to expand.

Part of me was concerned and frustrated. But a huge part of me was giggling inside. I was finishing up an essay on the collaboration between Zhao Yuanren and Liu Bannong and was planning on writing about their work “Listening to the Rain.” Surrounded by the sounds of rain, outdoors and indoors, I sat quietly, organizing my thoughts.

I would remember this particular Mid-autumn night for a very long time.

Several months have gone by since my last post. Unlike the early months of 2022 when I went into hibernation mode, I stayed engaged this year. I reviewed a book series; recorded and performed with my singer friends; and, most importantly, reconnected with many friends. The activities that were held up by the pandemic and the visits that were cancelled all happened in a hurry.

Having friends around not only kept my spirit up but also inspired me to learn new music and to carry on with my old projects. For two years, I wrote about the nascency of Chinese art songs and traced the history and development of Chinese poems. In 2022, I began exploring the musical settings from the early twentieth century. One of my deepest wishes was to bring these musical works to live and to introduce them to new audiences.

Fascinated by the literary tradition and curious about the musical compositions, my bass friend Paul took upon himself to learn three songs: The Great River Flowering Eastwards and I Live by the Headwaters—both set by Qing Zhu, and Red Beans Verses by Liu Xuean. Despite the linguistic challenges, we were able present them to a live audience in Sarasota and recorded them afterwards. As things calm down gradually, I look forward to future performance opportunities and to being back at my desk for more discussions on song settings.