ZI-XIAO HE
composer
call of the paper kite
for solo piano / 2014
“Call of the Paper Kite”, composed in May 2014, was inspired by a movie I had partially seen as a child. During WWII in China, a little girl had a best friend who was an orphaned boy. They shared everything together every day until the boy was captured by the Japanese invaders for medical experimentations. The melancholic and nostalgic idea of a young, pure and innocent friendship stuck with me. Perhaps we all had such a friend at a very young age. Perhaps we had never seen him/her again ever since then. Perhaps all that remains is a paper kite from him/her. This piece is in three parts: the protagonist is reminded of the beautiful past upon seeing the kite, deeply shook by that traumatic event, and eventually decides to look ahead in life in pain, only to forever cherish the kite, the fragmented memories and the innocence that once bonded the two children so tightly.
recording
Sherry Du, piano
Recorded in Walter Hall, University of Toronto, on 27 January, 2015
Copyright © Zi-Xiao He 2014