Kai-Young Chan
Canto
Duration: 30'
Canto
Video
Work introduction
“Canto” signifies both “to sing” and “to enchant” in Latin, while also representing “Cantonese” in English through its abbreviated form. The title is chosen for the collection because the musical materials of all the works are derived from the lexical contour of Cantonese. By working with the hidden Cantonese texts in the works––ancient Chinese poetry, crowd-sourced speech recordings, and other thematic phrases––melodies, harmony, timbre and textures are created out of the Cantonese language. This approach gives rise to a new “vocal” music that can only be sung by the violin, breaking free from the affordances of the human voice.
This collection include works for solo violin and duo combinations, including two violins, violin and sheng, as well as violin and fixed media. All of these works are commissioned and premiered by violinist Patrick Yim between 2018 and 2024.