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Design notes for the poster:

The first row, all black and white shows death; and the second row, with gestures that hold nothing and finally hold a plant (life), shows the reviving. The whole series of photos were chosen from my photography class in 2018, under a project called “Oblique Selfie”.

Speech notes:

This voice recital has 2 sections, death and life. The first half is the song all about death and darkness.  After the transition part that I will sing with Elysia without lyrics to show the dance of darkness, I’ll start the journey of reviving. The reason I choose death and life is because for me, death doesn’t mean the end, it means the start of a reborn and a new journey. Just like seasons, things die in winter and revive in spring like now. Year by year, they die and revive, grow up, and become stronger and stronger.

In the first half, I want to mention Schubert. He is definitely my favorite composer, and also the one I first knew in my life because my mom used to sing his lullaby to me, and when I was in grade 5, one day in my music class, I read the score which was the same one in my memory, and the book said that was from a person called 舒伯特 in Chinese. That was my first time of knowing his name. The song I just sang was called Der Tod und Das Mädchen, Death and Maiden. I heard this title firstly not from this song, but from Schubert’s string quartet with the same title. Performed right at this spot by Goucher’s Avery and Fischer prize receiver Calder Quarter in October 2017, I was amazed by this masterpiece. This vocal piece’s starting is very similar to the second movement of the string quartet piece. But he composed this vocal song much earlier than the string quartet piece. I was wondering, he was so into this topic, could it be he felt that he was writing the stories between himself and death? If you are interested, please also listen to the string quartet piece, and you’ll have a better understanding of this piece. The lyrics of the song are made by the conversation between the maiden and Death, and the first part is from the maiden who asked Death to stay away from her, and the second part is from Death gently saying that he is not scary and asking her to sleep in his arm. The song ended in a peaceful major chord, which shows finally the maiden was finally taken by death.

The next song I’ll sing is called Elkönig, the Elf King. This song was written by Goethe, it was a story about a father riding a horse with his very sick kid. On their way home, the kid sees the Elf King tempting him, and he screams to his father. However, the father can’t see the Elf King and tries to soothe the kid. When the father finally arrived home, the kid was already dead in his arms.  In this song, I’ll switch between 4 characters: the father, the kid, the Elf King, and the narrator. Schubert composed this song when he was 18 in 1815, and this song was marked as OP. 1 among all of his works. This ballade shows young Schubert’s great talent in composing. You can imagine the beginning fast notes mimicking the clopping, and by using different dynamics and melodies, you can tell the different characteristics of the characters and their conversations. The interesting thing is that Schubert tried to gift this song to Goethe, but Goethe didn’t show much respect in the beginning. Many years later, Goethe heard it at a concert and was finally amazed, however, at that time Schubert had already passed away for two years. The entire song is very dramatic, and hope you’ll enjoy it and feel the story.

(After the song with Elysia)

From now on, I’ll start my journey of reviving. The first song of the second half is called Ombra mai fu, which shows the appreciation of a tree, which also means life. I showed this from my poster by using a picture that I hold a plant. Speaking of the poster, all of the photos were chosen from my photography class last year, under a project called “Oblique Selfie”. The first row, all black and white pictures shows death, and the second row, with gestures that hold nothing and finally hold a plant (life), shows the reviving.

(After Ombra mai fu)

I’ll sing two 2 pop songs, one Chinese and one Japanese. The Chinese song is from a movie about a legend of a love story between a human and a fish. The human boy tries to save the fish but sacrifices his life, and the fish wants to return him by guarding his soul and finally helping him to revive. The lyrics of the song are mainly from the perspective of the third person and stated about that story. I’ve added one last lyric called: if I would meet you in my afterlife. These lyrics show I’ve already completed reviving and am ready for the afterlife. Also, these lyrics will cooperate with one of the lyrics in the Japanese song, which said “After reborn, I’ll shine on tomorrow.” The Japanese song is called The Night of the Sixth Star, by my favorite singer Aimer, and the whole song is all about hope, power, and appreciation. Quote from the lyrics, “Though I was only a small constellation, It has even been noticed by you that I was once here. Thank you.” It is also the song that I want to sing to everyone here. Hope you’ll enjoy and feel my appreciation to you, and travel on the reborn journey with me.

2019.04.03