Program Notes

Le Vent Balaye le Sable   (The Waves Sweep the Sands)

This work is a caricature of an interaction between drama and commentary by percussion, as in the Taiwanese Bei-Guan theater. The percussion beats away upon the epic from the ancient dynasty (the Three Kingdoms): the incomparable victory of the young hero right when he newly married the beauty of the time, he demolished the strong enemies as smoke and ashes.  But the poet Su Dong-Po (11the century) observed at his time that all the glory and tragedy of this once brilliant hero was swept away by the waves, seeing from the cliffs where the battle occurred.

A reflection on the poem of Su Dong-Po on the coast of Normandy, after seeing the Caen Memorial Museum of the 2nd World War.  The work was written for French musicians:  Daniel KIENTZY (Sax), Jacquline MEFANO (synthesizer), Alan HUTEAU (electronic percussion), for the concert of Ensemble 2e2m at the Pompidou Center in February 1990.