Rage of Love for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (2022)

Program Note

Rages of Love was commissioned by the LES ÉCOLES D'ART AMÉRICAINES DE FONTAINEBLEAU for her centennial celebration. It is scored for solo violin, 1 flute doubling piccolo, 1 clarinet in Bb doubling bass clarinet, one percussionist (glockenspiel, large tam-tam, 4 wood-blocks, one high G crotale), and a string orchestra of minimum 6-5-4-3-2 players. It is premiered on May 2nd, 2022, at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, with Dan Zhu as the violin soloist conducted by Bright Sheng.

The work was composed during the 2019 Pandemic, still significantly seething the world today. Then early in 2022 a war, the first since 1945, started in Europe. The world appears to go mad while its leaders are meekly coping with crises after crises.

Facing grave calamities, it looks as if art is so frivolous and negligible, and artists’ efforts are trivial comparing to the movers and shakers in the “real” world. In such an apocalyptic time, I ask myself what is the single most important thing that matters.

This is what I strive to discover in Rages of Love, a three-movement work, each in its distinctive characters, based on different ethnic musical materials.

—Bright Sheng