Yukie Lai U Kei, vice director of the Macao Percussion Association (MPA), told The Macau Post Daily in an exclusive interview last week that her association will collaborate with Chinese calligrapher Elvis Mok (邢悅) and multimedia artist Raymond Nogueira to perform the association’s 16th anniversary concert on November 26.
Established in 2004, the Macao Percussion Association is the first local non-profit percussion society which strives to provide musical training and performing opportunities to local percussionists.
Lai noted that MPA members will host a workshop at hush! this coming Saturday at Hac Sa Beach, where participants will be led to make music using various items made of glass, such as fish tanks, beer bottles and wine glasses. “The pitch of the ‘instruments’ will be determined by their respective water levels,” Lai added.
Chinese calligraphy, Western music
For every anniversary performance, the association will choose a specific “tone” for it, Lai said, adding that she was inspired by the pieces she chose and wanted to accompany the music with Chinese words. For example, she came up with some numbers where the numbers matched certain points or transitions of the music. “However, we do not want to simply display some numbers, we also expected it to be more artistic.
“Thus, Chinese calligraphy came to our mind, and we invited Elvis and Raymond to conceive how to fuse the elements together. In the end, Elvis helped us to write the words we thought of, and Raymond was tasked with putting the words together as a video performance that matches certain points of the musical passages,” Lai said, adding that a stage manager will also be coordinating the video and their live performances.
Lai underlined that they will be performing Western music, not Chinese music. “It is hard to pin-point the exact genre of the music we will be performing, but ‘impressionist’ is a good adjective which suggests that the music focuses on creating a certain mood and emotion for the audience. Percussion, after all, stresses and relies on rhythm to channel its ideas and expressions,” Lai said.
Percussion sound
One of the pieces, Bright Light – Dark Shadows, is Lai’s favourite of the upcoming performances. “While some of the pieces featured in our programme are constructed using resonating melodic lines, this piece has brilliant elements presented in a percussion arrangement, in my opinion, countering rhythmic directions creating great tensions and impression elements,” Lai said, adding: “A beat is ubiquitous in our daily life – heartbeats, walking and music. A quick tempo and sudden change of dynamics produce a sense of urgency and resolution that echoes with the listeners.”
Meanwhile, Bright Light – Dark Shadows draws a certain impression from the listener. “After my friend listened to the song, she told me that the song is very ‘dark’, causing me to believe that the song resonates with her sadness. Nonetheless, I feel that the piece balances its ‘light’ and ‘dark’ very well, for light can only appear where darkness prevails, and vice versa, but the point is that we as individual listeners can have different impressions of the composer’s intention. That’s the charm of the music I found,” Lai said.
Lai added that Bright Light – Dark Shadows is 12 minutes long and thus is divided into two sessions. “The piece requires 12 minutes to tell its story, but 12 minutes could be too long for many young audiences who have short attention spans,” Lai said, adding that the performance will be held at the Small Auditorium of the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM) on November 26 with only half of the seats available, since the association wanted unvaccinated children to enjoy the show without having to have a COVID-19 nucleic acid test (NAT).
Tickets can be purchased at Kong Seng outlets, priced at 150 patacas. Senior citizens, full-time students and/or those purchasing 10 or more tickets at a time can enjoy a 50 percent discount.
These undated photos show Yukie Lai U Kei and Wong Un Tong playing their instruments. – Photos provided by Lai.
Members of the Macao Percussion Association (MPA) perform at the Grand Auditorium of the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM) in Nape in November last year.
This photo taken during the interview last week shows the Chinese calligraphy written by Elvis Mok. – Photo: William Chan
