Bridging Cultures Through Music & Composition with BRIGHT SHENG - Highlights

Bridging Cultures Through Music & Composition with BRIGHT SHENG - Highlights

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MacArthur & ASCAP Award-Winning Composer, Conductor & Pianist

I try to preserve the Chinese music flavor. So, you imagine in Chinese band, the country music that people usually reserve for weddings or for big moments or for funerals. That kind of a feeling. Drums and music playing. I try to preserve it from my memory because what we have now is just a tune. You can probably recognize the tune, but the execution of translating that for a Western orchestra and make it sound like it’s a Chinese band playing Chinese instruments.

BRIGHT SHENG - MacArthur & ASCAP Award-Winning Composer, Conductor & Pianist

BRIGHT SHENG - MacArthur & ASCAP Award-Winning Composer, Conductor & Pianist

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MacArthur & ASCAP Award-Winning Composer, Conductor & Pianist

I try to preserve the Chinese music flavor. So, you imagine in Chinese band, the country music that people usually reserve for weddings or for big moments or for funerals. That kind of a feeling. Drums and music playing. I try to preserve it from my memory because what we have now is just a tune. You can probably recognize the tune, but the execution of translating that for a Western orchestra and make it sound like it’s a Chinese band playing Chinese instruments.

Exploring Music, Writing & the Cultural Life of Athens with KIRIAKOS SPIROU - Highlights

Exploring Music, Writing & the Cultural Life of Athens with KIRIAKOS SPIROU - Highlights

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Editor, Writer, Curator, Content Creator, Pianist & Composer

This particular exhibition definitely had to do with my close relationship to dance. I have collaborated a lot with choreographers for contemporary dance theater, and I was often advising collaborators, so we would create the tasks and the content of the choreography together. We would exchange the tasks. We would create the score and narrative together. Also, because I’m a pianist, which is a very physically demanding instrument, you have this geography of the piano. I think this exhibitions links to my own experience as a performer and composer for dance and the relationship that music has with the body.

KIRIAKOS SPIROU - Editor, Writer, Curator, Content Creator, Pianist & Composer

KIRIAKOS SPIROU - Editor, Writer, Curator, Content Creator, Pianist & Composer

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Editor, Writer, Curator, Content Creator, Pianist & Composer

This particular exhibition definitely had to do with my close relationship to dance. I have collaborated a lot with choreographers for contemporary dance theater, and I was often advising collaborators, so we would create the tasks and the content of the choreography together. We would exchange the tasks. We would create the score and narrative together. Also, because I’m a pianist, which is a very physically demanding instrument, you have this geography of the piano. I think this exhibitions links to my own experience as a performer and composer for dance and the relationship that music has with the body.

“As a child, music felt very natural for me" - LORENDA RAMOU - Pianist, Musicologist, Concert Curator at Onassis Cultural Ctr - Highlights

“As a child, music felt very natural for me" - LORENDA RAMOU - Pianist, Musicologist, Concert Curator at Onassis Cultural Ctr - Highlights

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Pianist, Musicologist & Concert Curator for Contemporary Music · Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens

As a child, music felt very natural for me. I didn’t feel I needed to put any effort into learning the piano. I wanted to find all the musical information that was there. What was the purpose of studying the piano? Suddenly the whole thing became so creative. I felt that the sound is something malleable and you can have an infinite number of possibilities and ways of phrasing and expressing, so that opened a whole new area of possibilities and I found this just fascinating.

What Secrets Does Greek Piano Repertoire Hold? LORENDA RAMOU - Pianist, Concert Curator at Onassis Cultural Center

What Secrets Does Greek Piano Repertoire Hold? LORENDA RAMOU - Pianist, Concert Curator at Onassis Cultural Center

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Pianist, Musicologist & Concert Curator for Contemporary Music · Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens

As a child, music felt very natural for me. I didn’t feel I needed to put any effort into learning the piano. I wanted to find all the musical information that was there. What was the purpose of studying the piano? Suddenly the whole thing became so creative. I felt that the sound is something malleable and you can have an infinite number of possibilities and ways of phrasing and expressing, so that opened a whole new area of possibilities and I found this just fascinating.