Artist mixes music of China and Britain

The London Symphony Orchestra's Gareth Davies played the dizi (a traditional Chinese flute) to present the premiere of And Nights Bright Days at Beijing's Reignwood Theater during the symphony's China tour in March. The solo was later performed in Shanghai, Wuhan and Macao.

The piece borrows its name from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 and the storyline from Tang Xianzu's classic Chinese opera The Peony Pavilion, in which lovers meet in their dreams. Its composer, Raymond Yiu, was inspired by the allusions in the works of the literary masters, both of whom died in 1616.

"In And Nights Bright Days, this sense of dreaming is conveyed by the constant mutation of the initial idea, a prolonged, quiet melody with just a few notes, and its return after the fast, lively section in the middle, with modulations - it is a dream being remembered after one wakes up," Yiu told China Daily in an email.

Yiu was born in Hong Kong in 1973 and has lived in the Britain since 1990. He has previously created cross-cultural music.

In 2011, he created Jie Shi for the qin (a traditional Chinese zither) with a string quartet. It was also performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in the tour.

"My encounter with qin music and in particular with You Lan - the earliest qin manuscript in existence - drastically changed my musical outlook," Yiu said. "Jie Shi was my first response to a genre of music very different from all those I was previously acquainted with, in aspects including its notation, performance practice and philosophy, and its aesthetic values."

Yiu said he works on fusions of multiple cultures.

"I look at the way, say, how silence is used or how chromaticism (in relationship to folk music) is being handled," he said. In case of the qin, he keeps the original music and makes it more like a painting. The string quartet is a frame for it, something that can amplify it.

China's ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, who watched the Beijing concert, said the artists from both countries worked together in such fields as drama, dance, music and literature even more frequently last year. Kathryn McDowell, managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra, said that, since its China debut in 2004, the orchestra has retuned many times.

Yiu started to learn the piano at a young age, but later trained as an engineer.

He called his approach in Jie Shi "scientific" and said the way he thinks about time frames - events described in a musical piece - is influenced by his career as a consultant years ago. Yiu used data from spectral analysis by looking at the sound frequencies of a recording of the original You Lan to help his creation.

Yiu's composing career began when his music was shortlisted by Britain's Society for the Promotion of New Music for three consecutive years after 2000.

He later developed his talents in jazz piano and conducting.

The Original Chinese Conjuror, which made its Austrian debut in 2013, and Maomao Yu, a quintet for the piano and traditional Chinese instruments, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra for famous Chinese musician Lang Lang, are among his other works.

meijia@chinadaily.com.cn