Wang Lu (born 1982)
Wang Lu graduated from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and earned a doctoral degree in composition from Columbia University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Brown University.
Her website states:
Composer and pianist Wang Lu writes music that reflects a very natural identification with influences from urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contours, traditional Chinese music and freely improvised traditions, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities.
Her 2015 composition Urban Inventory is for flute, clarinet, piano, electronic keyboard (tuned a quarter-tone low), violin, cello and recorded sounds:
She describes it like this:
When the evening air finally overtakes the smog at day’s end, a city’s exhausted population comes out for relief. Scenes of leisurely and nonchalant chatting, strolling, dancing, tai-chi, dog- and kid-walking. Sounds of broken instruments, mixed with songs of praise to western and eastern gods. Historical and recent memories creep back into consciousness: fantasies of early propagandist dance troupe goddesses, the unmistakably beguiling voice of a 90s pop icon (杨钰莹), a peasant rap sensation clamoring for a skateboard, the monotone of a rural poetess and her desire to escape her dreadful situation. And at dawn, these suddenly animated voices retreat back into the minds of those who will return to the lifelessness of their urban routine.
The six movements are titled:
1. city park
2. once upon a time, in another lifetime (at 3:20 in this performance)
3. (dream of the) red detachment
4. gifts of gab (at 7:55)
5. two voices of the people (10:15)
6. tell you softly (11:44)
Although the title of the 3rd movement appears in program notes for the composition, I’m not certain how it corresponds to any music.
Like Clockwork is a 2020 composition for violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion. Here is the premiere, performed remotely:
This is generally a gentle work but with a surprising drum solo about a third of the way through and an even more surprising honky-tonkish section towards the end kicked off by the pianist.