Share Album:

Release Date: September 25, 2020
Catalog #: NV6312
Format: Digital & Physical
Download Album Cover*

World Map

A Collection of Mini Concertos By Shuying Li

Shuying Li composer

Four Corners Ensemble
Joshua Anderson* clarinet
Erika Boysen* flute
Annie Jeng* piano
Christina Adams*, Heewon Uhm violin
Jeremy Crosmer*, Horacio Contreras cello
*featured soloists

Throughout history, music has overcome culture and borders to bring people together through a universal language. Composer Shuying Li and Four Corners Ensemble present WORLD MAP, a collection of five mini-concertos for quintet, which takes listeners on a journey around the world, opening their ears to music’s evolution as an international unifier.

Each piece of WORLD MAP focuses on specific cultural events that are representative of different regions of the world. Over the course of the album, the ensemble explores history through the lens of music and showcases their ability to interpret genres and idioms from the globe over.

Matilda’s Dream brings listeners to Australia with a thematic interpretation of the classic bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda.” The European leg of the journey is represented by The Dryad, a nostalgic piece inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name. American Variations takes things stateside with a set of variations based on quintessential American genres, including jazz, ragtime, klezmer, and pop-rock. Korean culture and traditional music are the focus of The Peace House, which draws its name from the inter-Korean Peace House. Canton Snowstorm gives the album a touch of surrealism with a pianistic depiction of a wintry weather in subtropical Canton.

Each member of Four Corners Ensemble serves as a featured soloist on pieces Li wrote to represent their cultural backgrounds.

Listen

Hear the full album on YouTube

Stream/Buy

Choose your platform

Buy Album: Amazon (CD & download) Qobuz (24-bit download)

"Superbly prepared and executed impeccably"

Gramophone Magazine

Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 American Variations (Version for Pierrot Ensemble) Shuying Li Joshua Anderson, solo clarinet; Erika Boysen, flute; Heewon Uhm, violin; Jeremy Crosmer, cello; Annie Jeng, piano 12:15
02 The Dryad (Version for Pierrot Ensemble) Shuying Li Erika Boysen, solo flute; Joshua Anderson, clarinet; Christina Adams, violin; Horacio Contreras, cello; Annie Jeng, piano 11:02
03 The Peace House (Version for Pierrot Ensemble) Shuying Li Christina Adams, solo violin; Erika Boysen, flute; Joshua Anderson, clarinet; Horacio Contreras, cello; Annie Jeng, piano 11:23
04 Matilda's Dream (Version for Pierrot Ensemble) Shuying Li Jeremy Crosmer, solo cello; Erika Boysen, flute; Joshua Anderson, clarinet; Heewon Uhm, violin; Annie Jeng, piano 13:46
05 Canton Snowstorm (Version for Pierrot Ensemble) Shuying Li Annie Jeng, solo piano; Erika Boysen, flute; Joshua Anderson, clarinet; Heewon Uhm, violin; Jeremy Crosmer, cello 10:46

Recorded April 5, and November 17, 2019 at the Hartt Recording Studio, the Hartt School, University of Hartford in Hartford CT
Recording Engineer, Editing Gabe Herman
Cover graphics designed by Tanner Porter

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Lewis

VP, Audio Production Jeff LeRoy
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Mastering Shaun Michaud

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner

Artist Information

Shuying Li

Composer

Shuying Li believes that music has the innate power to promote cultural diversity by connecting people through universally human passions and values. This belief has led to widespread interest and performances by Seattle Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Argus Quartet, Orkest de ereprijs (Netherlands), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Finland), ICon Arts Ensemble (Romania), Cecilia Quartet (Canada), Opera From Scratch (Canada), and Donald Sinta Quartet, among others.

Learn More
Erika Boysen

Erika Boysen

Flute

Through an accomplished career as speaker, solo performer, chamber musician, and pedagogue, flutist Erika Boysen is among classical music and interdisciplinary performance’s leading innovators.

She has been invited to perform in recitals, teach masterclasses, and lead creative workshops in Europe, Asia, and throughout the United States. Based in North Carolina, she serves on faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan.

erikaboysen.com

Joshua Anderson

Joshua Anderson

Clarinet

Dr. Joshua Anderson is an active orchestral and chamber musician and has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. He holds the position of Principal Clarinet with the Reno Philharmonic and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

As an educator, Anderson serves on the artist faculty of the Lake Tahoe Music Camp, the Qingdao Jimo Ancient City Music Festival, and is assistant professor of clarinet at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Christina Adams

Christina Adams

Violin

US violinist Christina Adams appears frequently as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has collaborated with leading artists from around the country, including New York Philharmonic principals Frank Huang, Michelle Kim, Cynthia Phelps, and Carter Brey, and has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Adams currently holds the Froehlich Family Violin Chair in the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, and is the artistic director of If Music Be the Food...Lansing. She also maintains a private studio, and spends summers in Italy as the Assistant Director of Strings and Chamber Music at the Brancaleoni International Music Festival. Adams holds degrees from the University of South Florida, Boston University, and a D.M.A. from the University of Michigan.

christinaadamsvln.com

Heewon Uhm

Heewon Uhm

Violin

Heewon Uhm is a Korean violinist, artist, and teacher. Her dual interest in chamber music and orchestra has led to performances in major music festivals including Tanglewood Music Center, Pacific Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival.

She was also invited to perform in the Elgar Symposium, and she played in the BBC Proms as the violinist for the Britten-Pears Young Artist Program. As a teacher, Uhm engages young students through mentorship programs. She has worked as a mentor in Korean newspapers and will return to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp as a member of the faculty. Uhm studied at the Korea National University of Arts, Yale School of Music, and finished her Doctoral Study at the University of Michigan. She joined Toledo Symphony Orchestra as the Assistant Principal Second Violinist in 2019.

Horacio Contreras

Horacio Contreras

Cello

Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras has gained esteem through a multifaceted career as a concert cellist, chamber musician, pedagogue, and researcher. He has collaborated with prestigious institutions across the Americas and Europe as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and master class clinician.

His pedagogic book Exercises for the Cello in Various Combinations of Double-Stops has received recognition as a significant contribution to the instrument’s literature. He is also the coauthor of The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works, a comprehensive database with information about works written by Latin American composers. Contreras serves on the faculty of Lawrence University and the Music Institute of Chicago, and is a member of Four Corners Ensemble and the Reverón Piano Trio.

horaciocontreras.com

Jeremy Crosmer

Jeremy Crosmer

Cello

Jeremy Crosmer is a remarkable young artist, both as a cellist and a composer. He completed multiple graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in cello, composition, and theory pedagogy, and received his D.M.A. in 2012 at age 24.

From 2012 to 2017, he served as the Assistant Principal Cellist in the Grand Rapids Symphony, and joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in May 2017. He is the composer and arranger for the GRS Music for Health Initiative, which pairs symphonic musicians with music therapists to bring classical music to hospitals. Crosmer is a founding member of the modern music ensemble Latitude 49, and a current member of the band ESME, a pop-classical mash-up duo that released its first album in December of 2016. Crosmer was awarded the prestigious Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award to publish, record, and perform his Crosmer-Popper duets. Crosmer has taught music theory, precalculus, and cello at universities across Michigan.

Annie Jeng

Annie Jeng

Piano

Annie Jeng enjoys a diverse career as an internationally active performer, educator, and arts entrepreneur. Some notable performances include Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with the Ann Arbor Symphony and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

In the summer, she is the Assistant Director of Piano at the Brancaleoni International Music Festival in Piobbico, Italy. Jeng has a strong affinity for contemporary music and collaborating with living composers. She is currently working on an anthology of commissioned pieces by female composers that introduces contemporary skills to intermediate-level pianists. She received her D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Michigan under the mentorship of Logan Skelton and John Ellis. Jeng teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Piano and Pedagogy.

anniejeng.com

Notes

WORLD MAP is a multicultural collection of mini concertos for quintet composed by Shuying Li. Each is approximately 10 minutes in duration, and focuses on specific cultural, musical, and historical events that are representative of different regions of the world. All members of the quintet are featured as a soloist, with the pieces showcasing past and present ensemble members’ cultural backgrounds.

AMERICAN VARIATIONS is a set of variations based on an original theme realized in different musical styles: jazz, ragtime, post-modern, klezmer, and pop-rock. It was written for American clarinetist Joshua Anderson. The overall structure depicts a metaphorical journey through different times in American history, at both the macro and micro levels. Specifically, the third variation, subtitled “Strange, strange time,” focuses on the frustration and disappointment that Americans are currently experiencing in a fractured political and cultural climate. The piece ends with a variation subtitled “Coming True,” in which the music depicts the power of the American Dream and resilience of the human spirit to overcome differences in favor of unity and progress.

THE DRYAD was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name. It depicts a chestnut tree’s migration from the countryside to the modern city, and focuses on the ideas of nostalgia, desire, modernity, old and new homes, contrast, and struggles. Schubert’s “Der Lindenbaum” is featured throughout the piece to represent the dryad’s nostalgia and old memories as it migrates to a new place ripe with new experiences.

THE PEACE HOUSE was inspired by Korean culture and traditional music, and by the idea of “peace” in general. The title draws the name from the Inter-Korean Peace House on the border between South and North Korea, a building that serves as a venue for peace talks between the countries. The building is situated in the Joint Security Area on the south side of the Military Demarcation Line bisecting the area. Before the Korean War, the village, named Panmunjom, consisted of homeowning civilians. The music tries to depict the fear and horror that wars instill within people, as well as the peaceful-yet-complicated emotions that people might have after a disastrous storm.

MATILDA’S DREAM’s thematic material is derived from the traditional Australian folk song “Waltzing Matilda.” Fragments of the theme are sprinkled throughout the piece, though it is not until the end that the melody appears in its pure form. After a dark and dramatic opening, the cello presents a brooding soliloquy punctuated by plucked open strings in the left hand. This cadenza builds in intensity as it travels into the upper registers of the cello, propelled by urgent, accelerating rhythms. When the ensemble finally enters again, the melodic fragments rotate between the different instruments with vigorous rhythm. The cello takes on a more combative role, disrupting the flow of the ensemble with bursts of chromatics, glissando trills, ricochet strokes, and harmonics. Gradually, the ensemble begins to make sense of the various fragments, pushing the music towards a more coherent version of the theme. When the melody finally appears at the work’s conclusion, all conflict has dispersed, allowing the lone cello to present the theme with the utmost tenderness and vulnerability.

CANTON SNOWSTORM draws inspiration from Cantonese opera woven with Western and Romantic influences from the pianist’s decades of studies. The piece depicts a snowstorm in the subtropical climate of southern China’s Canton, a surrealistic fantasy that exists only in the pianist’s imagination. Through music, however, what seems impossible becomes convincing.