Trio for Piano, Violin and Horn, composed during December 2012 and January 2013, consists of harmonic language rooted in popular music of Asia. On December 7th 2012, after attending a concert of French Baroque music by the Toronto-based Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra with a friend, the horn theme occured to me suddenly on my way home, while I was on a night bus. The composition of the piece was inspired partially by my memories from the winter before leaving China for Canada.

 

It is perhaps somewhat pittiful that not many composers like to write memorable melodies anymore and that art music since modernism is often hard to access for the average audience. In incorporating pop elements but classical techniques such as counterpoint, it is my wish to expand the territory of art music to include the pop style- the product of the core aesthetics of this era- pop culture. Therefore, this trio is my attempt of a “contemporary classical” piece that the audience will hopefully be able to connect with and easily understand; it is my attempt to write a piece that is genuinely derived from the contemporary culture and to introduce such music from the Far East to the Western classical realm in a familiar form.