Programme Note

I’ve always been amazed by music’s awesome power to transport our minds through time and space and to stimulate our imagination, allowing us to understand other cultures in a way that feels completely intuitive and universal. As a composer influenced by both Chinese and American cultures, I strive for my music to be a mosaic of these influences.

In Night-Shining White, a short work commissioned by Colgate University for The Empire Brass, my inspiration came from a Chinese painting of the same name, depicting a horse said to be a loyal companion to Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). This horse was known for its luminous moon-white coat, and the emperor loved it so much that he commissioned renowned painter Han Gan to create its portrait, which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is considered one of the great paintings of the dynasty.

I was drawn to the expressiveness and liveliness of the painting. Coincidentally, I was lecturing about the Tang Dynasty in my Core China course at Colgate while composing the piece. I had a feeling that the rich tones of the brass quintet would create a fitting soundscape to express both muscularity and lyricism.
©Zhou Tian