Program Notes
Program and biographical notes in English and French inserted.

Program Notes
The two instruments, erhu and piano, participate in a kind of dialogue, alluding to long distance conversations (e-mail), inter-generational interactions (parent-child), or dialects of a common language (Mandarin-Cantonese). The score is written using proportional notation to allow for the imprecise timing and rhythmic freedom inherent in spoken conversation. Each page of the 4 page score is on its own music stand. The stands are arranged to form the sides of a square, with the erhu player at the centre. At each new page, the erhu player turns to face the music stand. In a subtle way sonically, but visually and symbolically explicit, the acoustics of the performance venue is explored. The subtitles of the pages or sections are - East, South, West, and North.

Program Notes
Traditional Chinese dancer Elena Quah was looking for a newly composed contemporary section to fit into the middle of a traditional Chinese folk dance melody. The choreography and the music of this new section express the dancer's personal search, uncertainties, and disillusions. The dancer and the erhu player perform their parts ad libitum. Features of the music include angular lines, wide intervals, wide vibrato, pressure vibrato, left hand pizzicato, scratchy bowing, and bow tapping.

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God uses crisis experiences in our spiritual journey to reveal Himself to us in a new or fuller way. Peter's denial of Christ was a turning point in his leadership among the disciples. After Peter's denial of Christ three times, He asked him three times: "Do you truly love me more than these?" in John 21:15-17. Peter learned that his mission was to feed and take care of sheep. At the end of the piece, the clarinet repeats a phrase 3 times, asking the question: "Do you truly love me more than these?"

Program Notes
Hands that throw stars into space is the first work that the composer has written which makes a direct reference to God. The title comes from a verse in Graham Kendrick's The servant King: Come see his hands and his feet, the scars that speak of sacrifice, hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered. This work contains 2 quotations. The first quotation is the hymn Be Thou my Vision of Irish folk origin. Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. The second quotation appears at the very end, and is a self quotation from the duet Do you truly love me more than these?

Program Notes
In a dream, we experience a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations involuntarily. Sometimes we recognize what we are dreaming about, and sometimes the dream remains as an enigma. The recorded material, derived mostly from manipulating the recordings of the composer's past works, represents the subconscious events in a series of hypothetical dreams. The role of the live ensemble is that of conscious state. The subconscious and the conscious coexist in a collage, made possible in the synthetic construction of a "hyperdream." With anything synthetic, it is not to be taken too seriously.

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The form of In the beginning consists of 7 sections, corresponding to the creation of the world in 7 days, as described by the biblical account (Genesis 1). 1. When light first shone Against a background of string ostinato, the tone colors of the winds depict light that sometimes is a warm glow, at other times is bright and harsh. 2. Between the waters Minimal, quasi-improvisatory utterances depict the expansive sky. 3. Seeds of plenty The central theme is presented for the first time. 4. Dance of the stars Pizzicato strings offer an atonal exposition to accompany the dancing notes of the glockenspiel. 5. Song of the birds Birds of all types sing their songs through the woodwinds while the strings add a warbling song of their own. 6. Gazing at the moon A quotation from the Chinese ancient melody (yue er gao -- moon rises high) signifies the arrival of man as he admires the beauty of the moon. 7. Blessings of the promise The theme from Seeds of plenty is proclaimed in a fanfare.

Program Notes
This piece was written during the period between the births of my first and second daughters. While the demands of parenthood are great, so are the rewards. This work is dedicated to my loving and supportive wife, Patty. Text by the composer M1R 4H8 is the postal code of a little house on a crescent. On the front lawn is a cool maple tree. Idle neighbours watch from their porches. My neighbour's got insomnia, and the highway noise keeps her up! Birds and neighbourhood lawn mowers annoy you when you are trying to sleep in. And then baby starts to cry! Inside you will find the warmth of home.

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A Moment in A is a short piece using the A octatonic scale. This piece won a first prize at the 1991 Kiwanis Music Festival. The adjudicator, Clifford Crawley, had these encouraging words: "I find this short piece thoroughly convincing. It is unpretentious, but has energy and a fine sense of direction. The string writing is effective despite its limited range. It is rhythmic without being 'nervous,' and the contrast of texture/colour, articulation and dynamics most effective. Convincing writing in two parts is not easy - Bach and Bartók were masters at it, and your piece has the same purposefulness and absence of needing a 3rd part as theirs.."

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The title of Naked I came and naked I will depart is taken from the bible passage Job 1:21. Along with his physical suffering, Job struggles with spiritual and philosophical questions. His three "friends" are quick to provide "answers" to his dilemma. Job's demand for vindication ultimately leads to God's rebuke. Only after Job's repentance did his troubles end.

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Seven Trumpets of the Seven Angels takes its title and form from Revelation 8:6. There are 7 episodes, with each episode beginning with the sounding of the "Trumpet", as played by the pair of saxophones. This piece does not attempt to portray the meaning of the words through music (if that is possible at all). Rather, it raises the awareness of a serious message.

Program Notes
The term Six Degrees of Separation is the result of an experiment conducted by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the late 1960s. He sought the answer to this question: How are human beings connected? Do we belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world, are few and distant? Or are we all bound up together in a grand, interlocking web? He got the names of over a hundred people, at random, who lived in different cities, and he mailed each of them a packet. In the packet was the name of a businessman who lived in a yet another city. Each person was instructed to give the packet to a friend or acquaintance that he thought would get it closer to the businessman. Milgram found that most of the letters reached the businessman in five or six steps. To model this musically, the piece opens with the 6 performers playing unsynchronized. The "experiment" begins when the flute plays alone, attempting to send a musical message to the clarinet. Having received the message, the clarinet responds in imitation and further passes the message to the piano, and so on, until the last instrument, the cello, gets the message. Having found the path, the group plays together as an ensemble. The performers are physically separated with 2 instruments on stage and 4 instruments off stage at the 4 corners of the audience area. Six Degrees of Separation was selected as one of the six piece among 230 entries for ALEA III 2003 International Composition Competition finals. Six Degrees of Separation was composed with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

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Snakes and ladders is a playful piece that takes its title from the board game of the same name. As you try to climb the "ladder" there are always "snakes" lurking in the shadows ready to knock you down.

Program Notes
Synesthesia is an unusual condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, such as seeing a colour when hearing a sound. This piece is structured as 7 sections, corresponding to the order and spectral colours of visible white light - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. As the piece unfolds, the music takes on progressively cooler quality. Within the sections, the music is influenced by the qualities of a kaleidoscope, an object that contains loose fragments of coloured glass and reflecting surfaces so arranged that changes of position exhibit its contents in a variety of colours and symmetrical forms.

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The mood of Wandering wind is one of being carefree, where the traveling direction is whichever way the wind blows, guided by the confidence that knowing the truth brings.

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The Chinese folk song (san shí ­li ­pù -- Thirty mile village) from Shaanxi province is thematic to Woven threads. This tune, in altered mode, begins the piece. After a double bass solo, the source material is heard within the new context of 5/8 meter. The opening tune returns after a clarinet solo. The folk song is woven together like a thread with other strands to form a simple tapestry. Woven threads was created over a 4 week period during 2006 Arraymusic Young Composers' Workshop.