Year composed: 2016
Duration: 9′
Instrumentation: gayageum, geomungo, ajaeng
Notes:
Commissioned and premiered by the Pacific Rim Festival and the National Gugak Center, Santa Cruz, CA, October 2017
“Naseon” is Korean for spiral. You will hear the instruments revolving around a central pitch, becoming increasingly embellished as the piece progresses. Naseon II is the second part of a larger work; the first part features an extended solo for the haegeum.
I visited Seoul in the summer of 2015 as a Fellow at the National Gugak Center. They gave a wonderful two-week workshop on traditional Korean music, and workshops have continued over the last year at UC Santa Cruz. From them I learned first hand about the gayageum, geomungo, and ajaeng, all zithers, but played in completely different ways. Here the ajaeng plays variations of a Korean sanjo melody, which appears twice, surrounded by the ritualistic and rhythmic playing of the gayageum and the geomungo.