Wen-Pin Hope Lee

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Wen-Pin Hope Lee (李和莆) （1967- ） is a Taiwanese composer. His works comprise a variety of genres, including symphonies, theatre, dance, solo works, chamber music, computer music, and multimedia performance art. In 2004 he began his Taiwan Series of compositions: a body of work inspired by Taiwanese culture, including aboriginal and Hakka melodies, sung texts in Taiwanese, and the ambient sounds of Taiwan locales. Lee is the winner of the 2006 Golden Melody Award for Best Composer of Traditional and Artistic Music and a nominee for the 2007 Golden Melody Award for his recording of his five-act theatre dance piece Hsiahai City God through Water of Mengjia.[1]

Wen-Pin Lee resides in Taipei, where he teaches composition at his alma mater, the National Taiwan Normal University. He also serves on the music faculty at the National Taichung University and is active in the leadership of two ensembles in Taipei, the Sonare Symphony Orchestra and Music Dimensions.

Training

Wen-Pin Lee first experiences with music were as a child under the tutelage of pianist Chiu-chin Lai (賴秋鏡). At the age of 17 he began studies in composition and music theory with Prof. Chin-yow Lin (林進祐). He entered the bachelor's program at the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) the following year; his teachers were Shing-kwei Tzeng (曾興魁), Mao-shuen Chen (陳茂萱) and Shu-shi Chen (陳樹熙). Upon graduation Lee moved to America for graduate studies in composition and music theory at the Boston University. His teachers in Boston were Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou and Marjorie Merryman. Lee was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition in 1999.[1] In 2013, Lee had become the only Taiwanese among the notable alumni of Boston University under its entry on Wikipedia.

Upon his return to Taiwan Lee was appointed to the composition faculty at the National Taiwan Normal University, where he also serves as director of the Digital Media Center Music Interactive Laboratory. He also teaches music at the National Taichung University and the Affiliated Senior High School of NTNU. He is active as the artistic director of the Sonare Symphony Orchestra and as executive of Music Dimensions, an ensemble devoted to the performance of new Taiwanese music. [1]

Lee’s works consist of a variety of solo music, chamber music, symphonies, theater dance, film scoring and popular music. In recent years, Lee has been active in cross-disciplinary art, combining interactive images with all kinds of theatrical productions of dances, drama, and musicals. Lee has also written a great number of works in musical, popular music, and commercial scoring, establishing himself as one of the most important composers of crossover music in Taiwan.

Representative Works

Recent representative works by Wen-Pin Lee include the following composition in the Taiwan Series:[2][3]

Orchestral Music

  • Taiwan March: Five Orchestral Pieces (2009)
  • - commissioned for the 21st Summer Deaflympics, Taipei
  • Summit Images, Taiwan for the concert series Taiwan’s Mountains and Countryside (2008)
  • - commissioned for the Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs and National Culture and Arts Foundation
  • My Hometown In Our Homeland: Nine Tones and Eighteen Tunes (2008) for the Taiwan Series: Orchestra
  • Tunes from Various Regions of Hakka in Taiwan Inspired by Six Hakka Folk Tunes: Concerto for Solo Violin and Orchestra (2007)
  • - commissioned for the Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs
  • My Hometown in Our Homeland: Scenes of Lugang (2007)
  • - commissioned for the National Culture and Art Foundation
  • Mahakaruna Dharani: Symphonic Poem for Mixed Chorus with Soloists and Orchestra (2005)
  • - commissioned for the Dharma Drum Mountain Foundation

Chamber Music

  • Six Fu-Lao Folk Tunes for Violoncello Duet (2006)
  • Taiwan is the Formosa: Six Fu-Lao Folk Tunes for Violoncello Quartet (2006)
  • - Winner, 2006 Golden Melody Award for Best Composer of Traditional and Art Music.
  • Water of the Field in June: Six Fu-Lao Folk Tunes for Solo Violin and Strings (2005)
  • Three Scenes of the Pei-Gang: Three Fu-Lao Folk Tunes for Violin and Violoncello (2005)

Dance Music

  • All Rise when the Wind Blows: a Dance Drama in One Act (2005)
  • - commissioned by the Taichung National Physical Education Academy
  • The Ghost Arrives!: A Dance Drama in Four Acts (2005)
  • - commissioned by the Culture Development Foundation Committee
  • Hsiahai City God through Water of Mengjia: a digital music theater piece in five acts (2006)
  • - nominated for the 2007 Golden Melody Award for Best Album Producer and Best Performance

Digital Arts

In recent years Wen-Pin Lee has turned his attention to collaborative works employing digital arts. Works that have resulted from this include: Association of Raindrops, Transformation and Interaction, a depiction of ecological systems in Taiwan; Dimensions, a visualisation of religious rites using the techniques of digital virtual music theater; The Ghost Arrives!, a music theater piece using digital images; and Fabric Legend from the Taiwanese Legend Series, a music theater piece encompassing elements of literature, folk tale, drama, dance, and interactive images. Feint-and-Parry Misdirect, from the Taiwanese Nursery Rhyme Series, incorporates elements of children’s literature, computer music, and interactive images in a work of image-interactive virtual musical theater; the piece is scored for voices, prepared piano with amplification effects, and percussion quartet.[1][2]

Publications

Print

Lee's autobiography has been published in book form in a collection entitled Discovering Formosa: Taiwanese Contemporary Composers.

Lee regularly publishes scholarly research and presents lectures as well as compositions. The topics usually relate to his creative work, as when the ArtsIT 2009 Conference in Taiwan featured him in a panel discussion of "An Interactive Concert Program Based on Infrared Watermark and Audio Synthesis."[4]

Recordings

  • Audio CD: Rondo Capriccio: NTNU Symphony Orchestra Tour Concerts 2004 (2004). Produced by the National Taiwan Normal University. Includes Narcissus Flower and Dream of Spring at the River.
  • Audio CD: Adventures of Four Cellos (2006). Produced by Ling-yi Ouyang. Includes Taiwan is the Formosa: Six Cello Quartets of Fu Lao Folk Tunes. Winner of the 2006 Golden Melody Award.
  • Audio CD, Video DVD: The Banga City God (2007). Nominated for 2007 Golden Melody Award for Best Album Producer for Traditional and Art Music.
  • Audio CD: Telltale: Beginning with Formosa. Includes Taiwanese Melodies: Six Piano Quartets from Fu Lao Folk Tunes.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://www.music.ntnu.edu.tw/faculty/lee3/en/index.htm
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Book: "Autobiography: Wen-Pin Lee", Discovering Formosa: Taiwanese Contemporary Composers. Taiwan Composers Series. (Mandarin Chinese, n.d.)
  3. ↑ http://www.lovetaiwansociety.org/artist-information/wen-pin-hope-lee
  4. ↑ http://www.artsit.org/accepted%20papers.html

External links

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