07 November 2020 | 2:00 p.m.
With Alice Ping Yee Ho, Composer and Claudia Chan, Pianist
Opening Remarks: Mr. Justin Poy, Honourary Patron, Asian Heritage Month-CFACI
Alice Ho’s Strange Luminescence, an 18’ work for solo piano and chamber orchestra, was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting, Starry Night. This evocative composition is a psychedelic depiction of the images in the painting and beyond. The title, Strange Luminescence, is identified with a prominent piano figure that symbolizes the central entity of an infinite glow through darkness, casting different reflections or influences on its surroundings. The woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion represent the broad bands of shadowy colors of a distorted nature, reacting to the moon’s struck. Both soloist and accompanying ensemble play equal partners engaging intense musical dialogues, fusing and unraveling of contrasting textures and instrumental colors to create idiosyncratic chemistry. Strange Luminescence is commissioned and written especially for the Glenn Gould Music School New Music Ensemble and their distinguished graduate, pianist Claudia Chan (winner of 2010 Eckhardt-Gramatte National Piano Competition) through the support of Ontario Arts Council.
Alice Ho’s recent works: Chinatown, her new opera; Venom of Love, her new release on Leaf Music; and the Monkiest King, a children’s opera
Co-Organizers: Asian Heritage Month—Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc.; Toronto Public Library; York Centre for Asian Research, York University; Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto; Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University; Richard Charles Lee Canada Hong Kong Library, University of Toronto; Chinese Canadian Photography Society of Toronto; WE Artists’ Group; Social Services Network; Cambridge Food and Wine Society
Asian Heritage Month Festival is partially funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Asian Canadian Artists in Digital Age is funded by Canada Council for the Arts Digital Strategy Fund