MUSIC
ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC//
// To Hear A Thought In Fluid Time | Fixed Media Composition (2019)
This piece is the result of my Place & Sound artist residency with the Media Arts Committee.
“To hear a thought in fluid time” is a sound art piece aiming to capture the feeling of timelessness inspired by the traditional Japanese Nitobe Memorial Garden. It represents how a tranquil place of reflection can liberate you from your own life’s concerns and struggles, how it can teleport you to a multitude of places, shifting your attention outwards from yourself to what’s around you. And from those thoughts in that period of mindfulness, you can leave that place of mind with clarity – a fresh state of mind.
// The Ghost in a Marionette | Fixed Media Composition (2017)
“The Ghost in a Marionette” tells the story of a young ghost waking up reincarnated in a Chinese marionette. String instruments (erhu and violin) were used to convey the ghost’s haunting sadness, and various phonemes represent its incoherent, futile cries for help. These spasmodic sounds also symbolize the jerky marionette movements as it is controlled by a puppeteer before eventually accepting its trapped fate as an obedient, emotionless slave.
ELECTRONIC MUSIC//
// Eclectic Vision | Violin and Electronics Composition (2020)
This electronic track was composed in collaboration with Paperwave during the social-distancing times of the COVID-19 pandemic, combining a distant electric violin with the rhythmic elements of Paperwave.
GRAPHIC NOTATION//
// Journey of Dreams | Graphic Score Interpretation (2021)
This piece is the result of Vancouver New Music's One-Page Score Project with Vancouver School Board’s University Transition Program (in partnership with the University of British Columbia). Here is a sonic interpretation of the graphic score, Journey of Dreams, by two students, Michael and Sarah, interpreted with layered acoustic piano.
Artist Statement - Andrea Wong
The overall blue-purple tone of Michael and Sarah’s score inspired me to find something sonically shared – the instrument choice – between the three main grids which I interpreted as three sections. I felt a general tone of abstract nostalgia with wistfully neon interruptions. I wanted to capture the score’s charming elements of scattered chaos, and was guided by many complex layers, bright colours, and periods of space between components. Exploring each of the three dimensions by following the hazel line, I experimented with layering recorded acoustic piano to reflect various sustained motions, washes of transparency, and shimmering figures.
// Perceive | Graphic Score Interpretation (2020)
This piece is the result of Vancouver New Music's One-Page Score Project with the Vancouver Electronic Orchestra. Here is a sonic interpretation of Jack Griffith's graphic score, Perceive, using a single Guzheng processed with colour-tracking interface, C.H.I.M.I.R.A.
Artist Statement - Andrea Wong
Observing Jack Griffith's graphic score, I was firstly taken by the immediate starkness of its black and white contrast, and later perceived a recurring pattern hidden throughout. Its otherworldliness led to my choice in using a non-Western instrument. I wanted to play with different sonic perceptions of this sole audio source - like the different portrayals of the recurring pattern - by capturing different timbres from a Guzheng (through plucking, tapping, brushing, bowing...). These sounds were electronically processed live through a colour-tracking interface I developed in MaxMSP, which allowed me to further manipulate the instrument's sound from the positioning of various coloured objects.
// To Reach Middle Ground | Graphic Score (2020)
This piece is the result of Vancouver New Music's One-Page Score Project with the Plastic Acid Orchestra. It was influenced by the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests and the feelings of uncertainty and hope for Hong Kong and China to reach a mutually satisfactory compromise - a middle ground. This graphic score plays with different perspectives and requires different instrument families to read the one-page score in different orientations of the page. All musicians read inwards from various starting points at the outer edges of the graphic score and play together meeting at a central focal point.
MIXED-MEDIA MUSIC//
// Space Garden | Interactive Mixed-Media Installation & Performance for Game Controller, Mbira, Tambura, Guzheng, Electric Violin, and Electronics (2021)
This interactive mixed-media installation and performance was done in collaboration with Ruby Singh as part of an artist residency program, UNION Immersed, led by Kiran Bhumber and Nancy Lee and hosted by Vancouver New Music, INTER/MEDIATE, CURRENT, and the Roundhouse Community Centre. This workshop comprised of developing WebXR spaces through the platform Mozilla Hubs. More information about this residency can be found at https://www.unionimmersed.xyz/.
"Space Garden" is a 6-channel structured improvisatory performance led by audience interactions with the installation's virtual WebXR space. In its premiere performance, audience members explored this digital space via a game controller; their navigation choices determined the instrumentation, poetry, and improvisatory choices of the artists. This performance explores a meditative garden of 360° video domes, wisps of folk instrumentals, poetry, and spacious vocals sown throughout a floating galactic island.
// releasing a jar | Fixed Media Composition (2021)
"Releasing a jar" is an audiovisual sound art piece created from a collection of natural soundscapes, field recordings, and instrumental improvisations. Due to the remote nature of Westben’s 2021 Performer-Composer Residency, "releasing a jar" captures multiple cities in North America including Los Angeles, New York, and Vancouver. The process and creation of this piece were extremely collaborative, involving a curious cross-pollination of an unlikely mix of diverse artistic practices. Amongst exchanging, and repeated mixing and remixing of each artists’ acoustic ideas, initial concepts transformed into various interpretations that ultimately collected into a single sonic experience: an adventure that transports the listener through a number of characteristic sound-worlds. "Releasing a jar" explores the meditative, the haunted, the anxious, and the melancholy; and finds a peaceful coexistence somewhere among and between.
PETER BUSSIGEL,
euphonium
AC,
electric guitar
JEREMY ROSENSTOCK,
bowed cooking lid, shells, stone marimba
ANDREA WONG,
piano, violin
// Migrations | Interactive Audiovisual Performance for Baritone Saxophone and Electronics (2018)
This mixed-media piece was composed in collaboration with Jackson Bell. "Migrations" is an attempt to capture the awe and wonder in nature, particularly prey-predator interactions in different terrains, and present them in an electroacoustic manner, with no text, recorded from a single saxophone source, and for 4-channel live theatre. This project was inspired by contemporary saxophone techniques and contain sounds that contort, slap, and drone to simulate the wildlife soundscape. Live sounds also included continuous note patterns through circular breathing on the baritone saxophone that communicate with saxophone samples projected through speakers. Using both visual displays from the documentary Planet Earth, and processed audio, Migrations creates an audio-visual experience demonstrating both the peaceful and tumultuous aspects of life cycles found in the wilderness.
// El Tunche | Interactive Performance for Violin and Electronics (2018)
This mixed-media piece was composed in collaboration with Katie Lee and Yozu Liang. It displays the conflict between man and nature in the form of an old Peruvian myth. The composition is based on the legend of El Tunche, a spirit of the Peruvian rainforest, who targets those who harm or disrespect the forest. Taking a modern twist to the tale, our project embodies the spirit, its victim, and the toll taken by the forest with MIDI and live instruments. The composition is interspersed with audio samples of both the forest in its natural beauty and sounds representing human deforestation, animal poaching, and oil drilling.
MAIN PATCH
A matrix is used to switch the
presets between sections.
MUSIC CONCRÈTE//
// Lost Angelus | Fixed Media Composition (2017)
Adapted from Debussy’s Les Angelus for voice and piano, "Lost Angelus" attempts to symbolize how society has become religiously lost over time. Using a bell for the melody, accompanied by a cathedral organ, Debussy notes are quickly covered by an increasingly overwhelming jumble of concrete sounds. These sounds range from the invention of the first pocket watch in 1675 to the first iPhone in 2007, as well as pieces written by atheist composers. They are presented in chronological order to journey from the 17th century, when the Angelus’ prayer was standardized, and into our industrialized, secular present.
PERFORMANCE//
// Violin | Vanier Park Symphony (2019 - Present)
In her spare time, Andrea can be found playing and performing regularly with the Vanier Park Strings, a local recreational adult symphony in Vancouver, BC.
// Janggu | P’ungmulp’ae San Param Ensemble (2014 - 2015)
P’ungmulp’ae San Param is a Korean Drumming Ensemble at UBC directed by Dr. Nathan Hesselink. Both the choreographed dance and seated portions of the performance are performed by a combination of gong and drum players. Andrea can be seen below performing on the Janggu or 장구, the hourglass drum at a year-end performance.