"Touch," composed by Michelle Li '23

I chose to write a four-movement suite based on the Coiling Dragon, Bell from Temple of Guanyin, Ritual Wine Vessel (Jue), and Bi Disk because of my initial impulse to run my hands along the works of art and touch them. Often in museums, the public is not allowed to touch the artworks. That being said, my urge to reach out and feel the textures of the pieces still remains.

I decided to work with recordings of the viola with the addition of electronics in order to create soundscapes that reflected my imagined touch. I overlapped a lot of different musical patterns and added additional reverberation to express what kinds of sounds may have come from striking the works of art.

One element of the artworks that first struck me was the unique qualities of bronze, with the exception of the jade Bi Disk. For the Ritual Wine Vessel (Jue), I wrote the movement “Patina” using scratchy viola sounds with the patina of the Jue in mind, and for “Scales,” the piece accompanying the Coiling Dragon, I tried mimicking what I imagined bronze scales would sound like while moving. The movement “Jade” has icy, airy viola sounds to reflect the smooth texture of the jade Bi-Disk, and “Bells,” the last movement inspired by the Bell from the Temple of Guanyin, features piano prepared with coins threaded through the strings to produce a sort of gong sound.