Download UC San Diego Composer Shortlisted for Pulitzer Prize in Music

UC San Diego Composer Shortlisted for
Pulitzer Prize in Music
Xiaoxiang refers to the region in China’s Hunan Province where the rivers Xiao and Xiang intersect. It is also the
title of a concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra composed by UC San Diego music professor and Qualcomm
Institute composer in residence Lei Liang. The work was one of three finalists for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The Pulitzer awards and finalists were announced on Monday, and Xiaoxiang by Lei Liang (published by Schott
Music) just missed out on the prize, which went to Julia Wolfe for her folk-classical hybrid, Anthracite Fields, an
oratorio about coal miners in Pennsylvania at the turn of the last century.
Lei Liang’s work Xiaoxiang also sets an historical account to music. He wrote the concerto to commemorate a tragic
event that took place in the Xiaoxiang region during the Cultural Revolution.
“A woman’s husband was killed by a local official,” says Liang. “Without the means to seek justice, she decided to
take revenge on the official by wailing like a ghost in the forest behind the official’s residence every evening. Months
later, both the official and the woman went insane.”
Liang used electronically transformed sounds to echo the ghostly wailing, and the concerto “re-synthesizes the
electronic sounds through the means of an orchestra,” according to Liang’s liner notes to the published work.
“Inspired by a widow’s wail and blending the curious sensations of grief and exhilaration” is how the Pulitzer Prize
committee explained the concerto.
Composer edition of Xiaoxiang, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (Schott Music)
Xiaoxiang had its original premiere at the World Saxophone Congress XV in Bangkok, Thailand, featuring soloist
Chien-Kwan Lin backed by the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Allan McMurray.Xiaoxiang was
commissioned by and dedicated to soloist Lin, who also premiered a major revision of the concerto with the Boston
Modern Orchestra Project in March 2014, conducted by Gil Rose.
Instead of displaying technical virtuosity, the soloist portrays the protagonist’s inability to articulate or utter. “The
soloist’s music is marked by silences,” said Liang. “In that sense, the work may be perceived as an anti-concerto.”
The third finalist in the music category was The Aristos, by John Zorn, a work for violin, cello and piano that creates
“a vivid demonstration of the brain in fluid, unpredictable action.”
There is good reason to believe that Lei Liang could have a Pulitzer Prize in his future, at least based on the track
record of this year’s winner. Julia Wolfe was previously a runner-up for the prize in 2010 (for her piece, “Steel
Hammer”).
If he eventually wins a Pulitzer, Liang would be the third UC San Diego music professor to take home the prize.
Former UCSD professor Bernard Rands won the prize in 1984 while on the faculty of the Music department, and
Roger Reynolds – the first composer in residence of Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute – received the Pulitzer Prize for
Music in 1989 for his work, “Whispers Out of Time.”
The next phase of Liang's Huang Binhong project is the large-scale orchestra work, A Thousand Mountains, A
Million Streams, which is commissioned by and will be performed by Boston Modern Orchestra Project. The piece
will be completed in Liang's third year as composer in residence in Calit2's Qualcomm Institute. His appointment to
that position ends June 30, 2016.