ZI-XIAO HE
composer
Click for score:
This recording project was made possible with the generous support of Dr. Christos Hatzis
Erick Oliver Wawrzkiewicz, violin
Scott Downing, piano
Recorded September 30, 2023,
Electronic Music Studio, University of Toronto
A tribute to Bill Evans
Bill Evans and his poetry on the piano as been one of my spiritual supports in recent years, in my period of difficulty and growth. "You Must Believe in Spring" was both a standard that Bill Evans loved to perform and the title of one of his last studio albums, released shortly after his untimely death. The title of my piece “I Dreamed of Spring” is my nod to its secretive tie to the performance of the jazz standard “You Must Believe in Spring” that Evans recorded with Tony Bennett in 1975, which greatly inspired me before composition began.
Apart from the philosophical heart of - in the words of Bill - "search for truth and beauty, and forget the rest", I aimed to demonstrate in the work two of my favourite practices found in Bill's playing:
- tall extended chords with closely voiced dissonances
- rootless voicings
Click for essay with full discussion of piece:
Rootless voicing of chords (mm. 7), transcription of "Like Someone in Love", recorded by Bill Evans in 1962
Examples of my own rootless voicings in "I Dreamed of Spring"
Performance History
May 21, 2019, Mazzoleni Hall, Toronto
June 18, 2019, St. Paul's L'Amoreaux Anglican Church, Scarborough
Oct 15, 2019, Walter Hall, University of Toronto
June 24, 2023, Bethel Canadian Reformed Church, Richmond Hill
Copyright © Kevin Zi-Xiao He 2024
"I Dreamed of Spring" for Violin and Piano (2019)
Duration: 9'16"
“I Dreamed of Spring” (2019) is my first composition for the instrumentation of violin and piano. Inspired by his favourite jazz pianist Bill Evans, who famously said “search only for truth and beauty”, I sought to let go of all intellectual concerns, and just compose a piece that is completely honest and heart felt. A marriage of romantic and jazzy vocabularies, the piece depicts one’s acute desires and hope for spring - a time of peace and beauty, a metaphor for the never ending yearning for the ideals in life within us all.
Original commissioned by violinist Danielle Greene for the graduating recital of her Artist Diploma in Violin Performance, the work was revised with an expanded middle section in the subsequent months, and eventually chosen by Erick Oliver Wawrzkiewicz as an in-depth project spanning a few years, who contributed significantly to the bowing and interpretation of the piece and performed it numerous times, leading up to the recording with pianist Scott Downing.