Yin Yang Collective

 

THE LURE OF THE EAST
Yin Yang Collective

Yin Yang Collective is Britain’s first Chinese – western fusion band.

The group got together in the heady aftermath of the year-long China Now Festival. Members of The Chamber Music Company and The UK Chinese Music Ensemble, interested in the mutual benefits of working together, planned an event comprising traditional Chinese, western classics and new music: Inspired by China. It was launched as part of the China Now celebrations.

Following that first large-scale event, the Collective has done mainly special one-off gigs, but 2012 brings a new major initiative: our new touring programme

The Lure of the East

an introduction to Chinese instruments and playing styles, heard through western and eastern Classics. We have constructed a new programme where the instruments are heard in their own repertoire, then exported to the west to join in country dances, tangos, folk music and Classical evergreens. Chinese instruments bring a whole fresh insight into western melodies.

Highlights to include: ‘Greensleeves’, Vivaldi ‘Four Seasons’, Mozart ‘Turkish March’, Strauss ‘Radetsky March’, Piazzolla’s passionate tango ‘Oblivion’, ‘Jasmine Flower’ and ‘Moon over the Erquan’, Falla ‘Spanish Folk Songs’, and a specially constructed Folk Song Suite, displaying traditional melodies form both cultures.

Though committed  primarily to music, Yin Yang Collective’s programmes incorporate dance (A History of Polish Footbinding – traditional dance with Chopin preludes), Shanghai cabaret (Zhou Xuan – Film Angel); Mahler & Judith Weir revisited (putting the original Chinese back into Das Lied von der Erde & The Chinese Opera).
The Collective is also rich in educational experience, and all projects offer rich possibilities for demonstrations and workshops.

Yin Yang Collective’s players are expert in their own fields but acknowledge the need for in-depth collaboration. Chinese music fuses well with western instruments, and vice versa. The integration of styles is viable without compromising either tradition, and the new orchestration brings new perspectives to both!

Yin Yang Collective’s debut was in December 2008, with Inspired By China, a one day festival of Chinese music, featuring an exhibition of Chinese bowed instruments, a concert of traditional Chinese music, and music by Chinese and Western composers for mixed ensemble.