Tzyy-Sheng Lee

born in Taipei in 1965, he first started taking piano lessons when he was four years old, and at the age of nine he was admitted to the Experimental Music Class to undertake formal music training. He received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Theory and Composition from the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei in 1988. Then, after completing his two-year military service in the autumn of 1980, he travelled to the United States to study at Boston University, where he received his Master of Music. He subsequently transferred to the University of Pennsylvania as a William Penn Fellow and was awarded his Ph.D. in Musical Composition in 1996. Among his composition teachers were Yen Lu, Hwang-Long Pan, Theodore Antonious, Lukas Foss, Richard Wernick and George Crumb.
Tzyy-Sheng Lee’s honours include the Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize of the Asian Composers’ League in 1986. His works have been performed in Taiwan, Japan, United States, Poland, New Zealand, Chinese mainland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria and Thailand, including the Asian Composer’s League Festivals, Aspen Music Festival, the iscm World Music Days, the Asia-Pacific Festival, and ‘Aspekte’ Salzburg. His music was also presented at the unesco International Composers’ Rostrum in Paris in 1992 and subsequently selected for broadcast in Austria, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia.
Having returned to Taiwan in the summer of 1996, Tzyy-Sheng Lee is currently on the faculty of the Department of Music at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung.

Selected works: Piano Trio in D (1981), Phoenix, duet for oboe and piano (1983), Reversing, concertino for cheng and string orchestra (1985), Solo for piano (1985–87), Ten, music for cheng (1987), Thirteen and one-third, music for erhu (1987), Five Movements for string quartet (1987), Lontano da Lu-Chow for a cappella chamber choir (1986–88), Five the first, duet for piano and vibraphone (1988), Eight for double bass (1988–90), Lontano da m.i.t., trio for clarinet, violin and piano (1990), Mr. de-ath, quartet for four Chinese instruments (hsiao, erhu, pipa and cheng) (1990), Sonatina Piccola for horn and piano (1990), Poem of the Nation’s Demise No. 1 for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin and harp, with words by Chinese poets (1991), Poem of the Nation’s Demise No. 2 for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin and harp, with words by Chinese poets (1991), senza No. 1 for orchestra (1992), Two Nocturnes for clarinet and piano (1992), Duo senza uno for flute (1992), Twelve plus five for piano, flute, clarinet and bass clarinet (1993), Quintet for Chinese instruments (di, liuchin, yangchin) and two percussions (1994), Little Prelude for orchestra (1994), Avanti, sextet for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion (1991–95), Abandoned for violin and marimba (1994–95), Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1995), ascend/descend, concerto for flute and chamber orchestra (1996), Fourteen for bassoon (1997), Sixteen for violin (1997), A Short Song for cello (1998), se No. 1 for large Chinese instrumental ensemble (1998), Quintet for Wind Instruments (1999), Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello (1999), Black Tide, dance music for small ensemble (1999), Five Chinese Songs for voice and piano (2000), Duo for Alto Sax and Marimba (2000), Duo for Cello and Double Bass (2000), se No. 2, sextet for wind instruments and strings (2001), Quintet for Flute, Saxophone, Double Bass, Vibraphone and Piano (2001), south•muse No. 1 for 4 Chinese instruments (2002–03), south•muse No. 2 for cello and piano (2003), Thirteen and one-second for double bass (2003).

ascend/descend was completed in March, 1996 and scored for solo flute and smaller ensemble consisting of strings and one of each wind instrument as well as harp and percussion. The solo flautist also plays alto flute and piccolo, and the differences among these three flutes as regards register, tone quality and other characteristics ins-pire the stylistic ideas of the music and the overall structure of the piece. From the very beginning of the work, the solo alto flute astonishingly acts as a violent and brutal leader, absolutely contrary to its stereotype of dolce ed’amoroso. While the range of the soloist gradually rises to its extreme heights by changing to the c flute and the piccolo, eventually, in the following sections, the tension of the music seems to lose its rhythmic vitality and becomes more and more languid... as an attempt to impose an ‘anti-climax’ and the thoughts of destructing. ascend/descend was commissioned by the Contemporary Chamber Orchestra Taipei and premiered by the conductor Chun-Fung Lee and the flautist Shu-Chun Chiang on 14 January 1998 at the National Recital Hall, Taipei.

Tzyy-Sheng Lee