Chen Yi (1953 - Present)

Introduction
Chen Yi was born April 4, 1953) is a Chinese violinist and composer of contemporary classical music. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts (M.A.) in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji (Four Seasons), and has received awards from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation[1] and American Academy of Arts and Letters (Lieberson Award), as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.

http://www.instantencore.com/contributor/contributor.aspx?CId=5003300 - Photo

Work Analysis
Paradigm Lost-  a string of important and boundary-busting releases on Innova, ECM, and many other labels, this collection firmly establishes PRISM’s own XAS label, and offers a kind of “State of the Union” address for the saxophone quartet. The album title is also well-considered. If there ever was a paradigm for a saxophone quartet, PRISM has long since dispensed with it, through a radical re-examination of what the saxophone can do…and who it can do it with. The quartet has worked with choirs, chamber ensembles, jazz bands, and the weird and wild instrumentarium designed by Harry Partch. As it happens, the works on this album, whatever their origins, are simply for saxophone quartet, but they all come from a place of collaboration, with composers who reflect the musical and cultural diversity of 21st century America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2x20BnWuQY

Comparisons
As like a raging fire was a departure for the composer from her typical joyful music. It began with explosive energy and even some anger. The chromatic ascending and descending scales on the violin and cello added depth to the piece. Contrasting this was piano turned artillery, lobbying ‘shots’ of struck chords over the bow of the audience. This song used many of the same symbolism that was present in her previous pieces.

Observations
Chen Yi’s “Angel Island Passages”…is a setting of writings on the walls of building in Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay, where Chinese immigrants awaited their fate. The singers, expressively accompanied by the Cypress String Quartet, faithfully projected the anxiety and homesickness of these people, as well as the emerging feelings of hope for a new day: “I am an American,” they sang. This song was an inspiring one that I enjoyed listening too.

=='''Works Cited ''' == https://www.presser.com/composer/chen-yi/

http://www.koussevitzky.org/grantscomplete.html