Healing Modes is nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble category.
About the Album
The healing properties of music have been recognized from ancient greek civilization to the field of modern neuroscience, and expressed in countless global traditions. The slow movement of Beethoven’s Opus 132, ‘Song of Holy Thanksgiving From a Convalescent to the Deity in the Lydian Mode’ is among the most profound expressions of healing in the string quartet repertoire. Beethoven’s Opus 132 quartet is paired with 5 works commissioned for, and premiered by Brooklyn Rider. The composers include Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Matana Roberts, as well as recent Pulitzer prize winners, Caroline Shaw and Du Yun.
Release date: March 27, 2020
About “i am my own achilles heel”
i am my own achilles heel,
a form that would never shape
I am always fascinated by a fantastical world that lies in a reality, a liminal state that lies at the edge of half fantastical, half hallucination. Years go by, I am told this could be a condition and there is a term for this condition: it is the world of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
According to the medical journal, although the cause of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is unknown, the condition typically accompanies episodes of migraines. Affected individuals report feeling that different parts of their body are disproportionate in size and proximity and that their overall surroundings are “warped.” Specifically, these patients perceive objects as larger or smaller than they really are, thereby earning the syndrome its characteristic name.
There are many parts of the world, mental health is still considered as a taboo in the society. To share a piece of music is to say, we might all have fascinations, some real some really out there, you and I, us without them. Let’s share, let’s talk about it, let’s help each other out.
I am here for you, and you will I.
— Du Yun
Du Yun turns inward and outward at once, evoking the societal stigma of mental illness. The concept proves sound: the juxtapositions are illuminating, the playing persuasive, and the timing almost impossibly serendipitous.
Steve Smith, The New Yorker
10 tracks to help soothe the mind– One critic’s favorite music for tuning out and forgetting about the world
Zoë Madonna, The Boston Globe
This pre-pandemic #tbt of Du Yun’s “i am my own achilles’ heel” was performed in front of a live audience atWGBHThis immersive and atmospheric piece evokes the neurological condition of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, a disorder that affects and warps a patient’s perception of their surroundings, and this piece lies right there, at that liminal state of half-hallucination and half-fantastical unreality.