Constraints/Creativity - Cantonese Choral Works by Kai-Young Chan. Die Konzertisten / Felix Yeung. © 2025 Navona Records LLC

Spotlight

Tantalizingly Perplexing

KEITH BRAMICH listens to Cantonese choral music by Kai-Young Chan

'... an interesting and listenable album of modern choral music, very well performed.'

 

This album of Cantonese choral music by Hong Kong-based composer Kai-Young Chan (born 1989) will be released on the Navona Records label later this month. This is apparently the first Cantonese choral album to be published by a classical label. Kai-Young Chan studied composition in the USA at the University of Pennsylvania, which may explain the American flavour of much of his choral writing, particularly harmonically.

I was a little surprised to read, both on the composer's website, and on that of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he teaches, that Kai-Young Chan has been 'praised as "a tantalizing direction forward for East meets West classical fusion" by Classical Music Daily' as I couldn't find this text anywhere in this magazine, but truth is often stranger than fiction, and the composer has written to me to explain that the original quote is in this review from 1999, mis-spelled! This was actually my fault for not spotting a typographical error, so apologies to Kai-Young Chan and to anyone else who may have been misled by the first version of this paragraph.

I find some of this music to be tantalizingly perplexing as it sounds considerably more American than Cantonese in style, at least to my ears, but nevertheless, this is an interesting and listenable album of modern choral music, very well performed by the Hong Kong-based chamber choir Die Konzertisten.

Listen — Kai-Young Chan: Night at the Lantern Festival
(NV6687 track 3, 0:00-0:55) ℗ 2025 Navona Records LLC :

There's an interesting shift in style for the last two tracks on this album, 'Love never fails' and 'Psalm 23', which sound far more traditional than any of the previous pieces.

Listen — Kai-Young Chan: Love never fails
(NV6687 track 9, 1:04-1:59) ℗ 2025 Navona Records LLC :

I'm not at all sure that this is a 'tantalizing direction forward' for East meets West, but there's some interesting music here, and I must admit that I don't speak Cantonese, which means that I may not appreciate much of the intricacies of the text-setting.

Copyright © 2 January 2025 Keith Bramich,
Herefordshire, UK

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