Cutetudes

I first met Ke Lin in 2012. He was the pianist accompanying a Chinese cultural school orchestra on their tour to China, and in those concerts he performed my piano pieces China Rhapsody and Impromptu brilliantly. His friendly nature, immense talent and generous appreciation of my music ensured that we became good friends. His innate musical understanding, passion, dedication, enthusiasm and virtuosity all indicated that he should be a successful concert pianist, so I was amazed to discover that he has a very demanding day job (as an actuary) and practices the piano after hours while also caring for his family. He is a man of remarkable gifts.

Two years after his first child, Lia, was born, Ke commissioned me to write a set of piano pieces for her to learn when she was a little older. The result was the Cutetudes (‘cute’ + ‘études’), a set of classically-related, humorous pieces. After that, I sent him a few of my other pieces for piano, and the idea for this CD was born.

As an actuary working in the life insurance industry, I appreciate the importance of luck in our everyday life, and luck is exactly what got me involved in this project with Dr Julian Yu, whose music I deeply love.

Many years ago, I bought an interesting album called For Children on the MDG label which comprised piano music composed by a number of leading contemporary composers including Kurtág and Gubaidulina. I was hoping to introduce these pieces to my daughter Lia to raise her interest in piano music from an early age. Unfortunately, this idea was quickly abandoned after I listened to the album myself. The music sounded far too complex and dissonant for a young child!

About a year later, I was invited to perform Julian’s virtuoso tour de force China Rhapsody at the 20th anniversary concert for the Xin Jin Shan Chinese Cultural School. At the same concert, the New Goldberg Orchestra (NGO), which is comprised of students of the Chinese school, also performed Julian’s Xin Jin Shan Symphonic Poem, commissioned specifically for this event. I immediately fell in love with this extraordinary work, especially the children’s chorus which brought back many fond memories of my childhood. Julian later revealed to me that the chorus section was actually based on a very popular school song that I knew when I was young. However, the melody has been intentionally turned upside down to disguise its origin.

After the success of this concert, Julian and the NGO were invited to perform at the Shanghai International Summer Music Festival. I was fortunate enough to join the orchestra on this trip, pretending to be a harpist. As there were insufficient items on the program for the orchestra, I also got the opportunity to perform a number of solo piano pieces including an early work by Julian called Impromptu.

Impromptu is a highly sophisticated work published by Universal Edition in Austria, one of the most important publishers of contemporary classical music. The style of this work couldn’t be more different from the Symphonic Poem or China Rhapsody; it is full of dissonances and irregular rhythms! Not surprisingly, it reminded me of the album For Children. As Julian could write music in a diverse range of styles, I secretly hoped that he could one day compose some simple piano works that were both contemporary in style and, at the same time, accessible to children. The only problem was that I did not know how to ask him.

The China trip gave me the perfect opportunity to share my idea with Julian and, to my astonishment, he was very enthusiastic about it. He started working on it immediately. The original plan was to compose 10 pieces, but inspiration kept coming to him so that he ended up composing 20 pieces altogether! The title Cutetudes was Julian’s idea and it is a portmanteau, blending the English word ‘cute’ with the French word ‘étude’, which means study.

I can’t thank Julian enough for these wonderful creations. They are little gems, and I enjoy playing them immensely. Lia, who is now six and half years old, has also started to learn piano. She really enjoys hearing me practicing these pieces every morning before I go to work, and her favourite piece from Cutetudes is called “Two Swans under Two Moons”.