b'PROGRAM NOTESSHUYING LIPurple Mountains for OrchestraCOMPOSER: Born November 24, 1989, ChinaWORK COMPOSED: 2023. Commissioned by a consortium of orchestrasled by the Hartt Orchestra, directed by Edward Cumming.WORLD PREMIERE: 2023INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons,4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, 5 timpani, bass drum,castanets, glockenspiel, ratchet, sizzle cymbal, snare drum,suspended cymbal, 4 tom-toms, triangle, vibraphone, whip,wood blocks, xylophone, and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 8 minutes Photo by Lauren Elle Jaye JenkinsP raised as a real talent (The Seattle Times) with vivid, dramatic (San Francisco Chronicle) and enjoyable (Gramophone Magazine) scores, Shuying Li is an award-winning composer who began her musical education in her native China. While she was studying music at the Shanghai Conservatory, Li received a scholarship that brought her to the United States to finish her undergraduate music studies at The Hartt School in Connecticut. Li went on to earn doctoral and masters degrees from the University of Michigan. In addition to her composition activities, she is a passionate educator. Currently, she is a member of the music faculty at California State University, Sacramento.Li writes, Purple Mountainsis an orchestral overture filled with dramatic contrast, graceful melodies, and energetic rhythms. Musical ideas are drawn from my opera, When the Purple Mountains Burn, which explores the connection between Iris Chang and Shiro Azuma and the Nanking Massacre in China during World War II. Just like how the opera asks the question: What is it in us humans that could unleash the catastrophic power for one part of humanity to massacre and defile another part of humanity, Purple Mountains depicts this heavy subject in an abstract and absolute musical way: the fast whirlwind of panic and destruction, melancholy melody with dark and heavy harmonies, and uprising waves and textures that hijack the piece into a thought-provoking ending. The opera centers on two figures connected to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, also known as The Rape of Nanking (after the Japanese captured the city of Nanking in December 1937, they launched a six-week campaign of mass murder and rape against the civilian population of the city). Lis opera focuses on Iris Chang, the Chinese American author of the 1997 best-selling book, The Rape of Nanking, and Japanese soldier Shiro Azuma, who openly admitted to participating in the massacre and other war crimes against the Chinese during World War II.The overture is vivid, stark, and dramatic, and Li makes skilled use of the orchestras full range of timbres to evoke wartime terror and chaos.srsymphony.org2024-2025 Season 19'