Ying Quartet, A Musical Dim Sum, at CAPA, March 26, 2006, 7:00 PM
By Joanne LaRose and Louis Luangkesorn

Janet Ying, violin
Timothy Ying, violin
Phillip Ying, viola
David Ying, cello
http://www.ying4.com/

Shou by Chen Yi
Selections from Eight Colors for String Quartet by Tan Dun
Song of Ch'in by Zhou Long
At the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert by Chen Yi
Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 by Claude Debussy

The Ying Quartet played in Pittsburgh at CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts High School) Sunday evening. The theme was a musical dim sum. In his opening remarks Phillip explained that instead of a traditional three piece quartet performance they wanted to have more shorter pieces, basically a string quartet tasting menu. Known to chinese as dim sum.

The goal of this series was to look and examine the asian american experience, and to this end they chose asian composers including one piece they commissioned.

The asian pieces were rather remarkable in that they passed the theme between the parts, with all the parts weaving amongst each other and trading off the lead. Perhaps most moving was the "Song of Ch'in" composed by Zhou Long. This song is based on a poem

titled "Old Fisherman" by Liu Tsung-yuan. While listening to the Yings, you feel like you are on the water with the Fisherman rowing along in the mists of the morning sun. Also enjoyable was the three movements of the "At the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert," which was commissioned by the Yings. Chen Yi's inspiration in composing this piece was her visit to Kansas City for a Chinese New Year celebration. The first movement the strings were played in the style of an erhu, where the themes were presented the rhythm and infliction of various spoken phrases, such as ?*?Happy New Year?*? in chinese. The second movement, "Making Hand-Pulled Noodles," really showed off the way the quartet worked together. This had each of the parts playing with their own theme and one-by-one merging into a coherent whole. All of the pieces had the sense of each of the four parts working with the primary motif and passing it on to another (which one would especially appreciate if one were a violist, for example).

But it was after the concert when one of the things I love about Pittsburgh occurred. They had a meet-and-greet session over dim sum from Super Buffet. I was speaking with one of the violinists, and our little group talked about teaching young musicians; living in Iowa, upstate New York and Pittsburgh, how siblings decide to stay and work and play together; how fortunate it is to have a place like Eastman where four members of a quartet can study and teach together. Like the Chee-Yun recital that I went to last year, the opportunity to chat with the artists who visit us is a wonderful experience that is hard to get in other cities.

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