Works in progress:
New piece for Wind Ensemble
Qin - Three Poems about nature (text: Bai Juyi, Li Bai) for voice and percussion
Duo for violin and cello
Victoria Dispensary for ensemble
Works completed:
Q (2006) for wind quintet 7'
(Commissioned by Composers' Forum of the East)
5 Songs:
A Spirit's Dream (2006) for voice and piano (text: Ho Wen-Hsiung) 6'
(Commissioned by Lin-lin Chang)
Daughter's Lullaby (2006) for voice and vibe (text: Nicky Schildkraut) 4'
California Plate I (2006) for voice and piano (text: Victoria Chang) 4'
9:45 a.m. (2006, from cycle December Light ) for voice and piano (text: Andrew Allport) 1'
In the Forest of Green Flames (2006) for voice and piano (text: Nicky Schildkraut) 1'
Shrimp Tale (2005/06) for Jazz orchestra 5'
Peanut Noir (2005) for Jazz ensemble 6'
Waltz (2005) for solo bass clarinet 11'
Chanson (2005) for sheng solo 7'
Île de feu (2005, Olivier Messiaen, Orch. Alan Chan) for orchestra
Burlesque (2004) for orchestra
MP3 (premiere performance, excerpt) 12'
Burlesque is a form of cabaret show, complete with underdressed dancers and
strip-tease elements, and was popular from the 1860s through the 1950s.
Burlesque is currently undergoing a bit of a revival, and the composer was
intrigued with the humorous skits, fancy costumes and the frank, corny jokes
(mostly about sex).
The spirit of burlesque – a fast-moving panorama of entertaining events – is at
the heart of this musical work, which features multi-ethnic and vernacular
elements. Various forms of the scale are
used to weave together such diverse musics as ancient Chinese ritual music and
exotic gypsy circus fanfare, creating a modern burlesque, or an anarchical
postmodern collage.
Floes (2002) for vibraphone solo
MP3 (excerpt) 7'
available for purchase at
HoneyRock Publishing
metal...stone...being...cracked (2001/02) for percussion quintet MP3 (excerpt) 12'
Nica's Dream (Horace Silver, Arr. Alan Chan) (2001) for
Jazz Big Band
MP3
Final
project of Jazz arranging class, read by Concert Jazz Band of the
University
of Miami School of Music.
Midnight
Mood (Joe Zawinul, Arr. Alan Chan) (2001) for 5 Saxs
MP3
Mid-term project of Jazz arranging class, read by students from the
University
of Miami School of Music.
Composition 0 (2000) for woodwind quintet and
percussion MP3
This
is the first piece I have ever written, which involves a great deal of planning
in terms of forms, texture, pitch organizations and timbre control.
In this piece, I applied a lot of techniques that I learned during my
stay in Vienna studying with
Michael
Jarrell.
Through working with the members of the Other Music Ensemble, much
potential in this combination was discovered and used in this piece. The sounds of each individual instrument are merged together
and transformed from one color to another.
Composition 1 (2000) for string quintet and harp MP3
The
idea of this piece came from the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No.5.
The make up of the String Quintet, which consists of two violins, a viola and
two cellos, was used in Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. Two
cellos are used instead of one, which darkens the overall sound quality of the
piece.
Composition (2) (Etenraku) (2000) for orchestra MP3
Not long ago I began to be
aware of music of my own heritage and for the first time, I incorporated it, as
well as my recently discovered uses of color, into my own music.
Composition
(2) is an orchestral adaptation of a piece of Gagaku music called
Etenraku, Japanese ancient
court music adopted from China during the Tang Dynasty (6-8th
Century). It was read by University of Miami Symphony Orchestra.
Composition 4 (Good) (2001) for tape MP3
OPEN (1999) for 3
percussionist MP3
It was originally composed for a student theater production called Open, directed by Gino Ng in
Lehigh University. This music appears in the beginning of the play as an overture. The idea came from the methods of communication between humans in
prehistoric time using drums. A
contrast would be the way we communicate using the Internet by typing into the
computer.
* For more information, please email me at info@alanchanmusic.com.
Enjoy!