Lin Yang on her scholarship project ‘Gravity Weightlessness’
Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, 11 October 2024: Even in the womb, the unborn child participates in its mother’s life. It senses the environment into which it will be born. This knowledge is fascinating, but sometimes also a little depressing. Lin Yang has been exploring this world in her music for several years. The impetus for these projects came from a personal experience: “After the birth of my daughter, my music became a tool. With its help, I tried to approach and understand the hidden world of the unborn. So I use music as a means to explore this hidden world,” says Lin Yang. She is fascinated by the secret life of the unborn child and the way it subtly shares its feelings with the expectant mother. In all her recent projects, she has explored this connection between the unborn child and the outside world from different angles.
In her piece ‘9:30 pm, Lullaby’ (2023), she explores how children in the womb perceive sounds, such as soft music, while the piece ‘7:50 am, A Selective Memory’ (2022) focuses on the memories and memory function of unborn children. The piece ‘12:20 am, Bittersweet’ (2023) takes a musical look at the reactions of unborn children to different flavours.
In all of her pieces, her musical language is introspective and restrained, leaving plenty of room for individual interpretation.
During her stay at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House in Salzwedel, she now wants to take the opportunity to compose a new piece entitled ‘Gravity Weightlessness’ for ensemble based on the same basic idea. This time, however, Lin Yang is focusing her work on sensory perceptions in the womb, how an unborn child feels in the tranquillity of its weight in its mother’s body. The womb is a special space that allows the unborn child to float or swim almost weightlessly, comparable to an astronaut or diver. When the mother changes her position, standing, sitting or lying down, the unborn child’s sensation also changes. The constantly transforming sounds bring changing energy to the listener. This opens up a space for the listener in which they can musically empathise with the unborn child’s feelings of weight.
Lin Yang plans to record the composition, which was created in Salzwedel, with an ensemble, which will then premiere the piece together.
Lin Yang emphasised that she is grateful to the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the district and the association for the promotion of the artists’ and scholarship holders’ house for the scholarship and support in Salzwedel. Here, as she herself emphasises, she has the opportunity to concentrate intensively on her work, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. She finds the combination of nature, culture, history and architecture in Salzwedel particularly inspiring. ‘For me, Salzwedel is like a womb, with its round and enclosed shape suggested by the city walls. But even though this space is closed, it gives me room to develop and open up,’ says Lin Yang, describing her connection to the city.
More about Lin Yang
Born in Beijing in 1982, she began studying music with a focus on composition in her hometown in 1995. In 2007, she came to Germany to pursue postgraduate studies in composition on the recommendation of Professor Jia Guoping from the CCOM (Central Conservatory of Music). There she studied at the University of Music in Freiberg from 2007 to 2011 and then at the Cologne University of Music and Dance until 2013. She graduated from the Cologne University of Music and Dance under Professor Johannes Schöllhorn with the work ‘HE’ for large orchestra. Since 2014, she has been living in Berlin with her Swedish husband and daughter as a freelance composer.
In 2009, Lin Yang was awarded a sponsorship prize by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
You can find out more about Lin Yang and her compositions here: https://yanglinmusic.com (pm)