August 13, 2020
by 摩登天空 via QQ
近日，旅美作曲家、当代艺术家、策展人杜韵正式宣布签约摩登天空，成为又一位加入摩登天空音乐人矩阵中的作曲家。
一直活跃于世界音乐领域和国际当代艺术舞台的杜韵，是普利策音乐奖历史上首位也是唯一一位亚裔女性得主。此次签约，杜韵将携全新作品，与摩登天空共同拓展当代古典音乐在中国的疆域。
杜韵出生于上海，现工作、生活于纽约。音乐科班出身的杜韵曾先后师从于邓尔博、陈钢、Randolph Coleman, Bernard Rands, Mario Davidovsky等教授，现为美国约翰霍普金斯大学的皮博迪音乐学院作曲教授、博士生导师。被《华盛顿邮报》评为“史上最佳35位女作曲家之一” 。
杜韵其人与她的艺术作品一样，多样、复杂、立体、深刻。大胆而忠于自我的艺术审美让杜韵在创作中可以不受思维与语境束缚。
身兼作曲家、表演艺术家、跨界艺术家及策展人等多重身份的杜韵，创作主题大多着眼于社会议题，其中包含深刻的情感与反思，以多元化的叙述手法、丰富多样的音乐形态，并将不同的艺术领域融合为一体，音乐语言兼收并蓄，音乐风格融会贯通。
2017年，杜韵凭借歌剧作品《天使之骨》成为美国普利策音乐奖第一位获奖的亚裔女性，《纽约客》称她为 “源源不绝的原创力量与坚定不移的入世良知”，专辑也连续两年被评为年度最佳唱片。
两年后，杜韵携《天使之骨》登陆北京，成为2019年北京国际音乐节“年度艺术家”。
多年来，杜韵始终秉信“音乐无界”的理念，与来自世界各地的艺术家展开合作：2015年，杜韵为小提琴演奏家Hilary Hahn创作的作品《In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores》，助其赢得了第57届格莱美最佳室内乐专辑奖；2017年，杜韵与巴基斯坦艺术家Shahzia Sikander的合作作品获卡拉奇双年展最佳人气作品奖；2019年《Air Glow》获格莱美最佳作曲提名……
近年，杜韵同时致力于民俗音乐的推广，2017年发起了“未来传统”创想计划，广泛与世界各地的民俗音乐家和民间团体合作，以此推动包括中国地方戏曲在内的世界传统文化的传播与再创作。
（“未来传统”在纽约时代广场）
时间回溯到2004年，那时杜韵完成了她的第一部室内歌剧《Zolle》，那是一部有关来生的故事。在作品完成之前，另一部有关前世的故事也在杜韵的耳朵里逐渐成形。
这部关于前生的幻事, 就是收录在这张专辑的主题作品——《跳塔郎泰拉舞的某蟑螂》（A Cockroach’s Tarantella）。
（ 艺术指导：Spa Theory 封面设计师：建建）
被《纽约时报》称为“全美最重要四重奏”的JACK Quartet全程担纲这张专辑里的弦乐演奏，JACK Quartet与杜韵的这次合作，通过无懈可击的音乐技巧，完成了最激烈、最不拘一格的情感表达，完整呈现了当代古典音乐中的开放意识。
小提琴：Christopher Otto, Austin Wulliman
中提琴：John Pickford Richards
大提琴：Jay Campbell
这张杜韵的当代古典作曲专辑由五部独立成章的作品组成，其中开场曲《后序：随美又》取材于城市解冻的声音与四重奏的即兴，寓言当下世界的苏醒，与专辑里的最后一曲《前序：随景挑》遥相呼应，是专辑里仅有的两首即兴作品。
中间一曲《刺青的雪》, 十五分钟跌宕起伏却一气呵成，以John Zorn式的狂放不羁将《跳塔郎泰拉舞的某蟑螂》划分为中英双语念白各10首情景段落。
专辑同名作品《跳塔郎泰拉舞的某蟑螂》（A Cockroach’s Tarantella）整体采用音乐加念白的歌剧式叙事，如影像般的弦乐四重奏渲染和杜韵极具感染力的语言叙述构建出情节的虚构与情感的真实两条线索，并在戏剧性冲突与个人思索空间中此消彼长，相互增益。
故事由一只蟑螂而起，杜韵试图以蟑螂的身份，从女性的视角出发，对于人类的渴望、追求通过两位主人公毫不相关却相辅相成的命运，对人类蜕化的记忆进行溯源，并对我们不断追寻所谓“向上”、“崇高”却又总是周而复始的现象加以探讨。
杜韵的加入，使摩登天空旗下的作曲家阵营再次得到扩充。作为一家立足于青年文化的独立音乐厂牌，与作曲家的密切合作是摩登天空对于中国原创音乐领域的另一次深入与拓展。
摩登天空始终致力于以包容的眼光助力独立音乐与文化艺术在当代中国的多元化发展，相信随着更多作曲音乐家的加入，当代古典音乐也将在更多中国乐迷的了解和认同中焕发出新的力量。
Recently, Du Yun, a composer, contemporary artist and curator based in the United States, officially announced signing with Modern Sky Record Label, becoming another composer to join the Modern Sky Musician Matrix.
Du Yun, who has been active in the world of music and the international contemporary art stage, is the first and only Asian female winner in the history of the Pulitzer Prize . With this signing, Du Yun will bring new works to expand the boundaries of contemporary classical music in China with Modern Sky.
Du Yun was born in Shanghai, and currently works and lives in New York. Du Yun, who was a music student, has successively studied under Deng Erbo, Chen Gang, Randolph Coleman, Bernard Rands, Mario Davidovsky, etc., and is now a composition professor and doctoral tutor at the Peabody Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. The “Washington Post” named her as one of the “top 35 female composers ”
Du Yun and her works of art are as diverse, complex, three-dimensional and profound. A bold and self-loyal artistic aesthetic allows Du Yun to be free from the constraints of thinking and context in her creation.
Du Yun, who is also a composer, performing artist, crossover artist, and curator, has multiple identities. Most of her creative themes focus on social issues, including deep emotion and reflection, with diversified narrative techniques and rich and diverse musical forms, and integrate different art fields into one, music language is eclectic, and music style is integrated.
In 2017, Du Yun became the first Asian woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her opera “Angel’s Bone”. The New Yorker called her “an endless stream of original power and an unwavering conscience for joining the world.” “The album was also named the best record of the year for two consecutive years.
Two years later, Du Yun brought “Angel Bone” to Beijing and became the “Artist of the Year ” at the 2019 Beijing International Music Festival.
For many years, Du Yun has always believed in the concept of “music without boundaries” and cooperated with artists from all over the world: In 2015 , Du Yun created the work “When a Tiger Meets a Rosa Rugosa” on “In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores ” for violinist Hilary Hahn, which helped Hahn win the 57th Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Album; In 2017, Du Yun’s collaboration with Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander won the Karachi Biennale Best Popular Work Award; in 2019, “Air Glow” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Composition
In recent years, Du Yun has also been committed to the promotion of folk music. In 2017 , he launched the Future Tradition creative project, and extensively cooperated with folk musicians and folk groups around the world to promote the world’s traditional culture including dissemination and illumination of Chinese local opera.
Time goes back to 2004, when Du Yun completed her first indoor opera Zolle, which is a story about the afterlife. Before the completion of the work, another story about the past life gradually took shape in Du Yun’s ears.
This thing about the pre-existence of magic, is included in the album’s theme works – A Cockroach’s Tarantella.
The New York Times called the JACK Quartet “the nation’s most important quartet.” Throughout this album, the impeccable musicianship of both the JACK Quartet and Du Yun completed the most intense, single pattern of emotional expression that fully presents the open consciousness in contemporary classical music .
The album consists of five independent chapters. The opening song “Epilogue: With Beauty” is an improvisation by the quartet based on the sounds of Wuhan’s opening post-COVID19. The song “Prologue” echoes in a distance, and is the other of the two improvisations on the album.
The middle song “Tattooed Snow,” is fifteen minutes of ups and downs with John Zorn’s unruliness. “A Cockroach’s Tarantella” is divided into 10 scenes performed in both Chinese and English.
The album of the same name “A Cockroach’s Tarantella“ adopts an opera-like narrative of music and narration as a whole, and the plot is constructed by the rendering of a string quartet like video and the highly infectious language narration of Du Yun. The storytelling and the reality of emotions take place in a space of dramatic conflicts and personal thoughts. The ebb and flow work well with each other.
The story starts with a cockroach. Du Yun uses the identity of a cockroach from a female perspective to explore human desire and pursuit through the unrelated but complementary destiny of the two protagonists, and to trace the memory of human degeneration. We are constantly pursuing the so-called “upward” and “sublime,” but always repeated, phenomenon.
The addition of Du Yun expands the roster of composers under Modern Sky. As an independent music label based on youth culture, close co-operation with composers is another deepening and expansion of Modern Sky in the field of Chinese original music.
Modern Sky has always been committed to assisting the diversified development of independent music, culture and art in contemporary China with an inclusive vision. I believe that as more composers join in, contemporary classical music will also be understood and recognized by more Chinese music fans. Glow with new power.
