The Han & Heung Odyssey – Global Sounds of Resilience & Joy
Cecilia Kang; Angela Park
Albany Records TROY 2005 (albanyrecords.com/catalog/troy2005)
Korean-Canadian clarinetist Celia Kang commissioned seven of these ten short pieces to express musically two essences of Korean culture – han (suffering) and heung (joy); Canadian pianist Angela Park contributes in seven selections.
The WenYun Ensemble – vocalist Yeowan Choi and live-electronics performer Haeyun Kim – joins Kang in two pieces by Kim. Arirang Madrigal and Poetree share yearning vocalises and dreamy sensuality. Marc Mellits’ Andromeda portrays his grandparents’ migration from Eastern Europe to the U.S. with jaunty clarinet tunes over repeated electronic figurations. Kang’s clarinet turns jazzy in SiHyun Uhm’s Echoes of Hahoe: A Masked Reverie for clarinet, piano and electronics, based on Korean ritual dances.
The slow, ruminating Peace reflects Jessie Montgomery “making peace with sadness as it comes and goes.” Texu Kim’s Sweet, Savory and Spicy!! depicts a Korean chili paste with lively syncopations and discordant wails. Fragmented clarinet melodies over pulsating piano ripples evoke “boat song traditions, and how they resonate with people facing exile” in Kalaisan Kalaichelvan’s Do the waters stutter?
Eleanor Alberga’s Duo features abrupt clarinet phrases and pounding piano chords “internalizing han (a deep unresolved sorrow).” Kevin Lau’s Cradle embraces both han and heung in a disturbed lullaby, “honouring my mother’s resilience” (after childhood internment in India) “and the pain that must have accompanied the joy of raising her own family.” Sang Jin Kim’s gentle, bluesy Ballade ends the disc with “the quiet ache of han and the uplift of heung, where sorrow and joy intertwine.”
