Quotes by Project
Ji Mo: The Stillness of Solitude"Seattle's Byron Au Yong brings a highly visual theatricality."
Eric Bartels, Portland Tribune
"Taiko
is often about loud, rapid drumming that thrills audiences with its
physicality. But Portland Taiko takes a different tack with a new work
on its upcoming concert Rhythms of Change. Ji Mo: The Stillness of
Solitude by Byron Au Yong is a healing meditation."
The Oregonian
"Seattle-based composer Byron Au Yong is interested in music that moves
through space. His new work, Ji Mo: The Stillness of Solitude, is
described as a 'musical ceremony about being alone,' and the
enterprising Portland Taiko premieres that and other new works on its
13th-season opening program."
Willamette Week
Island: Theme and Migrations"I've
heard him conjure more beauty and expressiveness out of two stones
clacked together than many composers can with a full orchestra; he
likes to couple his exquisite aural imagination, movingly, with themes
of migration and distance."
Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly
"Au
Yong rightly despairs that the cassette-tape recorder 'cries out to be
saved from the scrap heap of forgotten appliances'."
Christopher
DeLaurenti, The Stranger
"Byron Au Yong resurrects the antique technology of the cassette tape recorder."
Seattle Weekly Pick
Ishquoh: Where Sounds Meet"A
site-specific performance piece/ceremony by Byron Au Yong, more
sensitive to natural sounds and the spiritual resonances of a place
than perhaps any other local composer."
Seattle Weekly Pick
Piao Zhu: Flying Bamboo"Byron
Au Yong brings forth another new performance piece entitled Flying
Bamboo -- Piao Zhu for the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Inspired by the
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove -- a group of scholars and poets who
got together to escape politics and societal duress in days of old --
this performance is the composer's own 21st century meditation that
reflects on the horror and beauty of bending amidst turmoil like bamboo
in a storm."
Alan Lau, International Examiner
"I'm always eager
to hear and see Au Yong perform his music, which elegantly mingles
traditional instruments and theatrical staging with an astute sense of
the avant. For the site-specific ritual Piao Zhu: Flying Bamboo, Au
Yong and his ensemble 'lay, beat, spin, scratch, sing, dance, roam, and
chant with their voices and instruments that include bamboo, Chinese
drums, cymbals, flute, harmonica, kubing (mouth harp), and water."
Christopher DeLaurenti, The Stranger
"Piao Zhu In Engligh, 'flying bamboo,' a new dance/percussion/chant meditation/ritual by
Byron Au Yong, whose multimedia works are as exquisite and imaginative
as they are unclassifiable."
Gavin Borchert,
Seattle Weekly Pick
BFE at Hugo House
"The show benefits from a spare, eerie score by composer Byron Au Yong."
Misha Berson, The Seattle Times