CYBER-RAVE: Concerto for Timpani and Chinese Orchestra

CYBER-RAVE is a timpani concerto that brings together two musical traditions that I am deeply passionate about: The timpani performance practice and the traditional Chinese performance practice. The inspiration of the work was rave culture. My interest is to find ways to communicate rave-inspired music through Chinese traditional instruments in an attempt to bridge the past with the present in symphonic form. Rave culture was (and still is) a vibrant part of our culture that defined my generation and collective identity. This project was an opportunity to express that part of my identity through a medium that is (normally) far removed from such aesthetics. Thus, incorporating rave-inspired music within a Chinese orchestral work offered ample opportunity to discover new possibilities for me to re-interpret how traditional Chinese orchestras can be heard, performed, and written for. This was so meaningful to me: Embracing the performance practice of traditional Chinese instruments while expressing them through a modern lens. East meets West, tradition meets modernity—a true representation of my bicultural identity in symphonic form.

I greatly thank the Taipei Chinese Orchestra and their Principle Timpanist, Hsin Fang, for commissioning me to write this work, and to The Canada Council for the Arts and The SOCAN Foundation for their support.

–Vincent Ho