Jala Suite II: "each is another"
Water
Mother of mothers,
permeating our primordial oceanic memory, pulsating through the texture of our being.
We are the brine fraught tear drops swirling through the sonic harmonies of the sea. The pulverizing water and the breathless wind, surrendering to the rhythmic pull of
moon and sun. Awakening on a wondrous, inexhaustible wave of time. The deep unknown,
pulling us under, spewing us out, as we wobble through the slender slit of now.
Produced and conceived by Jing Wang and Harvey Goldman.
Wooldland Impressions
(a suite for erhu, violin & marimba)
Woodland Impressions depicts five portraits of the nature, inspired by forest scenery. The mist hovered in the valleys, morning bath of fish and ducks in the brook, the midday lullaby, the stray birds, and the blooming floral in the garden, collectively deliver a set of natural features of a landscape in early summer.
Passaddhi
Lost in tranquility, the ethereal sounds and imagery of the inner mind struggle to maintain their primal elegance, as turbulence from the world beyond begins to infringe on their domain. The transcendent inner soundscapes of the imagination are ever vigilant as they rumble with the vestiges of human endeavor.
Passaddhi is an abstract experimental animation. A melding of sound and image that explores both the emotional relationships and the commonality of their formal language. The manner in which the elemental components of the underlying structure, such as line, shape, color, and form, as well as principals, such as harmony, balance, rhythm, and counterpoint, translate between the auditory and visual experience is a primary concern.
Tonewood
The Tonewood project takes a close look at the trees that make musical instruments. This short documentary features the artist and musician, Michael Swartz. The following Tonewood music video features an original composition and performance ("Lost Words") by professors Michael Swartz and Jing Wang, from the College of Visual and Performing Arts, at the University of Massachusetts, in 2020.
Uriel
Uriel, prophet of poetry, prince of presence,
archangel of the sun, propounds a new
troublous truth and suffers the slings and
arrows of the celestial Czars.The tumultuous
times are upon us. Oh, Nicolaus Copernicus,
transcendental historian of heliocentric geometry,
forgive us, absolve us, evolve us, if you can.
Ouroboros
Glints of light, passing of shadows, the choreography of perpetual existence sets the stage for this Delphian ballet. The impenetrable flow of life’s rhythms, their Sisyphean inceptions and cessations are punctuated with eternity’s ephemeral modulations. The transmigration has begun, the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning.
Brahmanda
The translation for the Hindu Sanskirt word Brahmanda is "the universal or cosmic egg." Ancient creation mythology is rich in references to this theme as well as the birth of twin creators. The epiphany of these ancient cosmologies is woven together with our cultural obsession regarding ownership, material wealth and territory. The piece gives credence to these archetypal themes. In the end we are all the same. "……ashes to ashes, dust to dust" (Goldman).
Sky Pacers
When the serenity of the great void and the fury of the cosmos intersect, when quantum mechanics and relativity come face to face, tiptoe and waddle, skitter and scuttle, whirl and whisk, behold: The Prophecy of the Sky Pacers is now! There is no escaping our cosmic destiny.
The musical composition for Sky Pacers was supported by a Summer Research Fellowship Program grant from the Office of the Provost at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA.
LÜ (for erhu & live electronics)
A recurring theme in composer’s work is the concept ‘balance of dichotomy’: East vs. West, tradition vs. modernism, and acoustic vs. electronic. In this particular work this theme is revisited in its attempt to meld together two temporally and spatially distinct instruments – erhu(Chinese two-stringed fiddle) and computer – through the utilization of the computer musiclanguage Max/MSP.
Enigma
The reverberation of image and sound create a diametric sense of both order and chaos. The struggle and tension between these vacillating degrees of complexity and the viewers ability to assimilate them are at the essence of the work. Enigma was inspired by the “Enigma Machine”, a device used in the twentieth century for enciphering and deciphering of secret messages.