Stephen Yip 16015 Langbrook Ct, Houston, TX 77084 (281) 855-0044 (Home) (281) 798-9868 (Cell) email:yshukin@mac.com |
Stephen Yip (1971) was born in Hong Kong, and currently lives in Houston, Texas. He obtained music degrees, DMA (2001) and MM (1997) from Rice University, with mentors Arthur Gottschalk and Ellsworth Milburn and BFA (1996) from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with mentors Law Wing-fai, Clarence Mak and Yip Wing-sie (conducting). He has attended music festivals such as: Aspen Music Festival, Colorado; Asian Composers’ League, Philippines; California E.A.R. Unit Composer Seminar, Arizona; June in Buffalo, New York; Music X Festivals, Ohio; the 13th International Summer Program, Czech Republic, IMPULS Ensemble Akademie, Austria, and Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida. Yip’s works have been performed in the United States, Costa Rica, Israel, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, China, and Philippines. He was the finalist in the 2001 Composition Competition of the international New Music Consortium for his solo violin piece “Tsu” and his Flute Concerto, “Shun” won the “Haifa International Composition Prize” in the year of 2003 in Haifa, Israel. In 2004, he received “Honorable Mentions” in the 1st International EPICMUSIC Composition Prize, Trieste, Italy and 2004 International Biennial Competition, by the Debussy Trio Music Foundation. Recently, he won the third prize in Molinari Quartet’s Third International Composition Competition and in 2005, he won the second prize in the Accent/Music05 composition competition and the finalist of the Foundation Orchestra Association’s International composition Competition. His orchestral work, Novel (A Little Story) has been selected as one of the winning works to be recorded and included in volume eleven of ERM-Media compact disc series, "Masterworks of the New Era". His music is chosen in the reading and recording session by the ensemble Accessible Contemporary Music, Chicago, Illinois. His music has been selected in the program of several major music conferences and festivals such as: National Society of Composers Conference, College Music Society International Conference, CMS South Central Annual Meeting, Los Angeles Chapter, the National Association of Composers/USA, New Mexico Composers’ Symposium and SCI Region VII conference, ISCM World Music Days 2005, in Zagreb, Croatia hosted by the International Society For Contemporary Music and 2005 Musicarama, Hong Kong new music festival. Recently, one of his new works was commissioned by Hong Kong Art Festival and was performed by Hong Kong Sinfonietta, conducted by Yip Wing-sie. Yip is a member of the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild, Society of Composers, College Music Society and the American Society of Composer, Authors and Publishers. Yip has served as music director and organist at catholic churches in 1999 to 2005. He has also served as the music panelists for the Cultural Arts Council of Houston in 2001 to 2003. |
Major Compositions: |
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Compositions | |||
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Thousands of Words |
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| Thousands of Words.mp3 - complete | |||
| Thousands of Words.pdf - complete | |||
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Thousands of Words (2005). This trio, “Thousands of Words” was composed for Flute, Violin and Cello. I was inspired by a Chinese brushwork master, Hwai Su’s piece which was written the “Tsao” or “Grass” style, a script much sketchier and more simplified almost like shorthand in the period of T’ang dynasty (7th century). In his work, I have found he had a well balance of contrast like: dry and rich in color, thick and thin in texture, and strong and weak in energy. The entire work was brushed a thousand of different words. Hwai Su created a continuous manner of writing, that is, he wrote an entire column of script without lifting his brush, producing a sort of spiral, word by word, from top to bottom. This technique gives an undistributed one-breath feeling to the whole composition. In this single movement piece of mine, I tried to create continuous musical phrases in different lengths, timings and rhythms, but I unified musical phrases in one gesture to express on breath feeling like Hwai Su’s brushwork. Besides, in each musical line, I used different note values and rhythms to make the music goes gradually and suddenly fast and slow to show some Hwai Su’s brushing techniques such as: swirling and rotating movement, making different stops and “prolonging and elaborating” or “shorting and simplifying” on different turning points. | |||
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Fung Bridge in the Night |
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Fung Bridge in the Night (1998). This piano piece is inspired by one of the Chinese 300 Tang Poems, “Fung Bridge in the Night” is primarily atmospheric and descriptive. We see a fisherman parking his boat under the bridge to rest for the night. The night comes alive with a brilliant moon, singing birds, leaves falling on the river, bells tolling from the temple. Enchanted by the night sounds the fisherman remains awake for the entire night. The music attempts to capture the lonesome quiet of the poem. The general characteristic of the music is slow and quiet. The first section features sustained high notes combined with periodic ascending gestures. The second section introduces descending gestures, combined with continually expanding melodic gestures, eventually returning to the stillness of the opening. | |||
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Yi Bi - Lotus Flower |
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| Yi Bi - Lotus Flower.mp3 - complete | |||
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Yi Bi – Lotus Flower (2004). This piano trio, “Yi Bi – Lotus” was composed for Violin, Cello, and Piano. I was inspired by Chinese brushwork in calligraphy and painting. The Chinese word, “Yi Bi” in English means “One Brush”. Lotus Flower is the first piece in the series of Yi Bi. The lotus flower is the best subject for illustrating the Chinese brushwork. The painting is clear, simple and direct. One brush is one of the Chinese brushing techniques. There is different balance, density, and depth could be produce by different applications of brushing technique. I employed the numeral idea into this music such as “three”. There are three basic stages of Chinese brushwork, “down-pull-up” to paint all different kinds of brushwork. The lotus is consisted of three main parts: lotus root, leaves, and flowers. The instrumentation of this piece is for three instruments; there are three main sections in the entire piece; and the motivic elements are based in three note-sets. I was inspired by many aesthetics and techniques of Chinese brushwork into this piece such as concepts of dots and lines as musical short notes and melodic long lines, density and looseness as texture, dark and light contrast as tone color, host and guests as dominant and secondary subjects, and space as empty measures and rests. | |||
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Ghost Orchid |
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| Ghost Orchid.mp3 - complete | |||
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Ghost Orchid (2004). This trio, Ghost Orchid was composed for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano. I was inspired by a Japanese floral design exhibition, “Origin of Ikenobo” in Houston, Texas. One of the floral design in Ikenobo’s style is “Shoka” which origins in the 18th century. It is simple and tradition. However, it has unlimited possibility to create natural beauty. It uses only one theme with three materials: flower, leaves, and branches to express life’s perpetual change and renewal. Through leaves, branches, buds, and open blossoms to suggest the flow of time from past, to present, to future. In this composition, flute, bassoon, and piano are my basic materials. And I tried to employ only a single theme, but in different gestures, timings, and colors to create unlimited varieties. There are four sections linked together in this piece, without break. In the first section, it starts in a moderate and flowing tempo with different long and short melodic lines. The section is more sustained, simple and siciliana dance style. The third section is fast and emotion. It has a contrasting idea, which emphasizes on short notes. The final section is slow and calm. | |||
©2005 by Stephen Yip
All Rights Reserved
Stephen Yip is a member of Society of Composers, Inc. SCI is dedicated to the promotion of composition, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.