《鷹眼》Wind Quintet No.1: Eagle Eyes (2016)

For wind quintet – flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, horn and bassoon

• Premiered in Auditorium, Maggagno, Italy on 10 July, 2016 (simplified version)

• Performed by Mirna Ackers, Helmke Jansen, Jelmer de Moed, Banri Hoshi and Joseph Betts in Leeuwenbergh Church, Utrecht, Netherlands on 2 October, 2016 during the Alba Rosa Viva Festival 2016.

• Performed by Simon Desorgher, Catherine Pluygers, Phil Edwards, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Anna Blake in Regent Hall, Salvation Army, London, UK on 18 November, 2016 during 19th London New Wind Festival.

• Performed by Sawasdee Woodwind Quintet in Mahidol University, Thailand on 11 August, 2017 during 13th Thailand International Composition Festival.

• Performed by Dogen Kinowaki, Norihide Hayashi, Ikuko Suzuki, Natsuki Nakazato, and Noriko Kuroda in Anyo-in Temple, Tokyo, Japan on 3 November, 2017 during Asian Music Festival/ ACL Special Festival.

Programme Notes

I live in a city where high-rises could be seen everywhere. These high-rises are often installed with security systems, monitoring perhaps more than what they should be overseeing. Under these “eagle eyes”, one’s life could be scrutinised to the very extreme, leaving very little chance for one to escape. However, to me “eagle eyes” also mean the eyes of a real eagle that I often see outside my window. Even in such an urban area, where non-human animals are rare, the eagle is still trying hard to look for the prey day after day.

Such double-meaning of the term “eagle eyes” inspired me to compose this wind quintet, in which one could not only listen to the soundscape of a metropolitan, but also the imitation of the real eagle voice by the clarinet and the oboe.

我所身處的都市被高樓環繞。這些高樓都連繫著保安系統，細察著所有人與事的分毫。在「鷹眼」底下，人的生活被完全監視，毫無逃脫的機會。同時，大自然中的「鷹眼」卻希望在這彷彿不屬於牠們的地土生活，日復日、年復年，找尋可生存的空間。本曲選取「鷹眼」的雙重意義，去探討石屎森林與大自然的關係。《第一管樂五重奏：鷹眼》由意大利音樂節SoundSCAPE Festival委約。