Parallel Gardens

I have composed a series of pieces entitled Gardens, as a tribute to the Ming dynasty Yuen Yeh, the earliest and the most exquisite Chinese horticultural treatise. Gardens, in this discourse, are treated not as a confined enclosure, but as an extended environment. A Chinese garden is a visual world as well as a world of all senses. Passing clouds, remote mountains, sound of ancient temple bells, transience of seasons, . . . all are parts of the extended space. When we recite a poem or play the lute, our spirits immerse into the garden while we remain reflective observers. These pieces are musical gardens. To perform one of them is to walk through a garden of sound. In Parallel Gardens, an ensemble of 24 saxophones is divided into 4 subgroups, each consisting of a sextet. This composition is a six-part canon, the subject of which is played in all forms of inversions, retrogrades, etc, albeit moving in an extremely slow tempo. A web of sound and harmonies arise out of the overlapping lines. The pitch collection is derived from a blues scale. - Lei Liang