Convergence

CONVERGENCE is a three-day festival co-presented by Intersection and MTSU Center for Chinese Music and Culture that explores new sounds through cross-cultural compositions. The festival presents two concerts and a webinar workshop, featuring the zheng, a Chinese plucked long zither that has a history of over 2500 years. The guest performer, Dr. Haiqiong Deng, is one of the leading zheng artists known for her performance of challenging contemporary compositions. She will join Intersection musicians in performing two contemporary compositions written for her: Dots, Lines and Convergence, a zheng concerto written by Chihchun Chi-sun Lee, and Moon Phase (world premiere) composed by Sun Yue.

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The MTSU performance will integrate historic and cultural context into an academically influenced presentation, while the Nashville performance will be designed for families and audiences of all ages including some hands-on activities. The concerts will also include traditional works for zheng and other Chinese musical instruments. 

Taiwanese-American composer Chihchun Chi-sun Lee received her doctoral degree in composition from the University of Michigan.  Her work Dots, Lines and Convergence, commissioned by the Harvard Fromm Foundation, presents distinct musical cultures that synthesize and “converge” in the final movement. Sun Yue, a Chinese-born composer who holds a doctoral degree in music composition from Florida State University composed Moon Phase specially for this Festival. 

Sun Yue writes of the work “The Moon represents powerful feminine energy, signifying wisdom, intuition, birth, death, reincarnation, and a spiritual connection. We long for its guidance, we look to it for peace, we crave its attention, we feel its power when it illuminates the night, whining upon us.”

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PROGRAM

Chihchun Chi-sun Lee - Dots, Lines and Convergence 

Sun Yue - Moon Phase for Zheng and 5 instruments **WORLD PREMIERE

Additional Repertoire for Solo Qin, Yangqin, Zheng and Zheng duet.

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ARTISTS

Kelly Corcoran, conductor

Dr. Haiqiong Deng, zheng

Dr. Mei Han, zheng

Lyujing Liu, yangqin

Celine Thackston, flute

Todd Waldecker, clarinet

Lawson White, percussion

Esther Sanders, violin

Emily Crane, violin

Sarah Cote, viola

Meghan Berindean, cello

Sarah Ransom, bass