Program Notes:

“Mother. I miss you. I am hungry. I want to go back to my birthplace.”

Etched in Korean, this phrase sets the solemn tone on the frontispiece of Dictee (1982), a book by Korean-American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982). Trilingual in English, Korean, and French, Cha spent her formative years earning 4 degrees at UC Berkeley following her family’s exile to the U.S. due to the Japanese occupation of Korea. This led to her pioneering a fledging and uniquely Korean-American voice, cut short after a brutal attack in NYC a week after the release of her now critical work.

The outer movements refer to a fragment from Dictee illustrating her mother’s desire and hesitation to speak when, under Japanese occupation, she was forbidden from ever speaking her mother tongue. The seemingly incongruous middle movement is an homage to Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes—a tale which Britten describes simply as “a subject very close to my heart—the struggle of the individual against the masses.” The outer movements explore the reduction, deterioration, and displacement of the interlude material to its component parts—themes and techniques Cha frequented in her own body of work.

New York Times Review:

“The soprano Julia Bullock sang Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” beautifully last Sunday with the New York Youth Symphony and Michael Repper. The surprise for me came right before the Barber, with the premiere of Peter S. Shin’s “Slant.” Mr. Shin, who is studying at the Yale School of Music, was inspired by a passage from the writings of the Korean-American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-82), reflecting on her mother’s oppression in Korea under Japanese occupation. The first and last movements of Mr. Shin’s 10-minute score convey tension through gripping music that boldly shifts from pointillist bursts to whooshing sound effects to eerie passages of wafting string lines. In the middle section, Mr. Shin pays homage to the “Sea Interludes” from Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” and manages to pull off something very difficult: evoking a past master’s distinctive voice while sounding entirely fresh and personal. Mr. Shin is a composer to watch. (This compelling video excerpt from his “Screaming Shapes” shows a very different sort of work, performed here by four players and six dancers.)”

— Anthony Tommasini