Leaving White

New Quartet For Guzheng, Erhu, Dizi and Piano

In this work I will process the experiences I shared with the outstanding Chinese professional musicians of the China Oriental Performing Arts Group. Unlike my suite for pipa and guitar, here I have to compose a very compressed piece in a very short form. To do this, I was inspired by a Chinese aesthetic concept: that of leaving open (Chinese: liu bai directly translated as “leaving white”), which serves as its title.

In short, it is about the artistic approach, especially when designing calligraphy and painting, of intentionally leaving appropriate empty space in order to make the entire work more harmonious and to give space for the viewer's imagination and thoughts. With this in mind, I renounced virtuosity and dense compositional techniques, chose simple harmony and melody and consciously tried to create the strongest expression with as few tones as possible.