Guest Blog Post by Randy Wong

Hello, Friends of Project Copernicus!

I am honored to be this entry's guest blogger. My name is Randy Wong, and I was one of the four composers featured on this weekend's "From the Land of The Buddha" concert cycle that opened our second season.

This week was completely exhilirating for me, in the many ways that makes Project Copernicus special. One thing that I especially like about working with this group is the process that is undertaken with each individual project; there are no "cookie-cutter" or formulaic approaches to getting the music to sound a 'certain' way. And, unlike traditional ensemble rehearsals, in which musical decisions are often made from the top down (i.e., the conductor makes all choices, and his/her players surrender their artistic license to him/her), Project Copernicus is very democratic. I experienced this first-hand as composer for this concert; every single one of my colleagues who performed in my composition "L'ours Chinois" supported my work — not only with their marvelous talents on their individual instruments, but also with suggestions and ideas to further the musical interpretation of my writing. In many instances, their ideas were much better than my own!

As a bassist, I myself have participated in many composer readings and performances of new works. All too often, musicians pass up the opportunity to engage the composers in dialogue about their writing, or are not genuinely interested in the performance of the new work. That is not the case with Project Copernicus, and since it is not, each of the pieces performed in this concert cycle were truly embraced by all involved.

It seems to me that the process that led up to our most recent performances was not lost on our audience — quite a few concert attendees came up to me after both performances to mention how much they enjoyed our work! Even though Project Copernicus is young in its (hopefully) long career, I feel that our approach towards music making is really starting to mature, and I look forward to using PC as a model for working with my own projects.

My thanks to Chung Park and Steve Danyew, along with Angel Lam and Ryo Sato for inviting me to be a part of this special concert cycle. As we say in Hawai`i ... "Mahalo nui loa" ('thank you very much') and "A hui hou" (until we meet again) ...

Much Aloha,

Randy Wong
Bassist & Composer of "L'ours Chinois"

P.S.: Please visit my website www.randywong.net/exotica if you are interested in learning more about my emerging work as a composer.