Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Mahk Intensity within Orange Vibrancy, is inspired by the rough creative intensity of the process of making in Korean creative arts practices, referencing Korean architect Byoung Soo Cho's Mahk principle, where sonic marks in the music happen intuitively to reveal individuality and reach out to a sense of spiritual force. The purpose of these Mahk-like marks in my music is to create sonic intensity within vibrance that suggests both abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler's dark gestural marks within orange vibrancies in her acrylic on paper Solar Imp, and the glowing intensity of Gugak performer Noh Eunah's highly expressive haegeum sanjo playing. Mahk Intensity centres around an intense middle section where musical marks of twisty knotty gestures, jazzy chromatic flourishes, aleatoric arpeggios and free sections, and extensive haegeum microtonal breaking tones create density to the structure-the gestural marks of Mahk-like creativity and black painterly like gestures akin to the knotty intensities of Mulgoa Nature Reserve in Sydney's wind-torn branches. This intensity of sonic mark making is surrounded by distilled sections which evolve in and out of the central intensity section, exploring the colour vibrancy of haegeum-nonghyeon.

Work Details

Year: 2022

Instrumentation: Solo Haegeum (tuning: Yuhyeon C4; Junghyeon F3)

Duration: 12 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Advanced — Complex rhythmic detail and changing colour nuances

Dedication note: Dedicated to Noh Eunah

Commission note: Professor Noh Eunah (Korean Music Department, College of Music, Seoul National University)

The composer notes the follwing styles, genres, influences, etc in relation to this work:
Korean architect Byoung Soo Cho’s Mahk principle, expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler’s gestural marks, Noh Eunah’s highly expressive haegeum sanjo playing and the free jazz of Matthew Shipp Trio.