New Music for the New Year!

Spring is on its way and the creative juices are flowing once again! On Friday, March 17th I recorded the piano part for my new single – Oriental Moon. I am really excited to be working with the extraordinary ethnic flute virtuoso Ron Korb. Ron will be playing the pan flute and I am also thinking about adding a guitar part later.

I originally conceived of Oriental Moon as a song with Chinese lyrics, but as the melodies unfolded, I could only hear Rob’s flute… his music said everything without words. The first inspiration for this song came to me on the last day of lunar new year 元宵节 (Yuanxiao Jie), the Spring Lantern Festival. The Spring Festival is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar; it’s a like a combination of Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, all in one, so when the day came, I felt a certain longing for my hometown back in Malaysia. As I began to play through the melodies, memories of bygone times gave way to another sense of longing, and I wanted to return to my NEW home and my family here. So this piece has a melancholic feel, a little dark…  Rob’s pan flute has the perfect sound of sadness to me, a sense of departure…

I tried to give this song a definite “Asian” flavor. I heard Chinese folk and traditional music all the time when I was growing up and these sounds became a part of my musical experience together with the classical training I received from a young age. I feel that many of my compositions combine both western and oriental influences – they are both the sounds within my soul.

Stay tuned for future updates on Oriental Moon. I’ll keep you posted.