Jenny will be performing the world premiere of Corrina Bonshek’s The Silences Inside Me for voice, yehu and cello at the Chinese Gardens in Sydney on February 11. The program, curated by composer/performer/researcher Nicholas Ng and presented by NSW Government as part of the 2024 Lunar Festival, will feature Corrina's new piece and other small works for voice, cello and Chinese instruments.
The Silences Inside Me was commissioned by Halcyon’s artistic director, Jenny Duck-Chong, and developed by Corrina in collaboration with writer/director Tasnim Hossaim, using Jenny’s own Chinese heritage as the frame for the work.
Corrina says:
“"The Silences Inside Me (2024), was born from a collaboration with Jenny and Tasnim that sits with the complex relationships with ancestry in the context of 1st and 2nd-generation Australians with migrant roots. Each collaborator has heritage / family in different parts of the world, and it was fascinating to chat and reflect on our shared and different experiences with family stories, cultural rituals, and the absence of these. I love the way that silence in the music is multifaceted - evoking the gaps in memory or absence as well as a space of joyful possibility in reimagining/rebuilding and growth."
The resulting work, a little like the elegant simplicity of a calligraphic gesture, has pared back the text to its essence, taking the listener on an evocative and reflective journey of discovery. Halcyon is delighted to present this work for the first time in this picturesque setting, in a program of Chinese and Chinese-inspired works for Chinese and Western instruments.
See program note below.
ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Ng erhu, yehu, hulusi
James Larsen cello
Chloe Chung dizi, flute
Sunday 11 February at 12.30pm and 1.30pm
Peace Boat Pavillion
Chinese Garden of Friendship
Pier St Cnr of Harbour St
Darling Harbour
COST
$12 garden entry
The free program will be performed at 12.30pm and 1.30pm.
NOTE: There are no seats for the event, but you can find plenty of places around the space to listen, or make a reservation for a table and banquet lunch in The Gardens tea room (garden entry price $8 for restaurant guests).
PROGRAM NOTE
The Silences Inside Me (2024)
Music by Corrina Bonshek, words by Tasnim Hossain.
The Silences Inside Me is a musical/poetic musing on ancestry that draws upon imagery from conversations with Jenny Duck-Chong about her Chinese roots. Jenny, Tasnim Hossain (writer) and myself as composer, each have heritage / family in different parts of the world. It was fascinating to reflect how we all use family stories, cultural rituals, and even objects to connect, or reconnect, to our ancestors. The silence in the title is multifaceted. It refers to the absence or loss of family connection, but also to a powerful space of reimagining and possibility. Musically the work journeys from a recognition of absence (the halting, gapped musical statements of the opening), to a rebuilding to connection (via imagery of a golden hummingbird and music that consciously references Chinese folk music), and finally to a third part where silence is refigured a space of flowering joy and connection. In this part, the ensemble gets to improvise and develop earlier musical ideas in new ways using their imagination and creative gifts.
- Corrina Bonshek
I've lost something precious
We lost things once precious
In the gaps
In the silence
Language, stories, family.
Holding onto absence.
Stories gone untold.
Ashamed to have lost what has gone.
A hummingbird.
Somewhere in memory
a story untold
A picture
raised leaves and flowers.
Leaves of gold,
shining.
I found something special
in the liminal spaces,
in the piecing together.
Learning, finding, building together.
Imagination,
silent, no more.
- Tasnim Hossain
The Silences Inside Me was created with support from Halcyon, the Australian Cultural Fund, and Corrina Bonshek & Collaborators (who are supported by the City of Gold Coast).
The event is presented by
