This is my first solo album. It has three main concepts.
First, it is a musical equivalent of a picture book. I always wanted to write music for children. The music has stories, an abundance of colors, and the warmth and tenderness of a bedtime story.
Second, it is a musical suite whose fourteen segments are to be listened as one united work. I wrote each movement as a part of a whole.
Third, its style is a mixture of classical, jazz and film music that I grew up loving.
The title for this album is “the other half of the moon.” I named it while visualizing a half moon. I’m fascinated with a half moon consists of half “light” and half “darkness.”
The suite has 14 tracks. It starts with a waxing half moon. It becomes a full moon on track 4 and 5. Then, the waning phase starts. Track 7 is about a waning half moon, and track 9 and 10 are about a new moon. We will see a crescent moon on track 11. The suite ends with a waxing half moon again. Returning to the same waxing moon completes one-month cycle of the moon. A nameless girl and a cat are center characters of this music. The girl and the cat only see each other under the moonlight.
I decided to write for 17 musicians just like a big band but I freely modified the instrumentation as follows: flute, oboe, clarinet, recorder, saxophone, 2 trumpets, French horn, 2 trombones, tuba, accordion, marimba and xylophone, piano, guitar, bass, and drums. On the second day of our recording, 6 violinists and 3 cellists joined the ensemble.
We recorded a special ensemble at Eastwood Scoring Stage, Warner Brothers on April 6 and 7, 2015. Dennis S. Sands mixed the tracks at his Sound Waves SB.
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