Instrumentation:

solo violoncello

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[See violin/viola version]

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Duration: 10' 

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Five Reflections (2010/2021)

The viola version Four Reflections was written in dedication to a friend, Lim Chun, the violist who had inspired my viola concerto Saving THESEUS-ARIADNE’ s Love (2011/2014). Composed with the viola at hand, Four Reflections has also been performed on the violin (transposed up a fifth).

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There are meditative qualities in this work that perhaps reveals an influence of my mother, who is a devout Buddhist. Expressing various states of reflection using natural harmonics as sound material, each movement reflects briefly on the previous movement in an interlocking form similar to the alternation found in the rhyming scheme of pantun poetry. In the violoncello version, there is another added movement (Rhapsodic) based on the original sketches of the work as a cello piece. The cello transcription was made in collaboration with Eunice Koh. She premiered the cello version at the University of South Carolina, on 20 April 2022.

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I. Reflective

II. Rhapsodic (2010/2022)

III. Ethereal, with a sense of freedom

IV. Light hearted; Dream-like

V. Spirited

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