An-Ting 安婷 Releases New Soundtrack ‘every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon’An-Ting 安婷, Daniel York Loh ‘every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon’OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASENEWS PROVIDED BY Let's Go Music News Former Kakilang Artistic Director An-Ting 安婷 and writer/performer Daniel York Loh are to release the soundtrack to their award-winning multimedia work, every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon. Juxtaposing the harsh experiences of the impoverished first Chinese settlers in London with the opulent world of privileged, but nevertheless bitter, émigré William Waldorf Astor, An-Ting 安婷 and Daniel York Loh create a powerful lament on the immigrant experience with spoken word and electronic music, taking in myriad reflections on the need for money and status and the right to call ‘home’ a land that can either reject or embrace you. An-Ting’s score is a soaring combination of unique ‘Asia beats’, a lonesome tack piano, a jaunty waltz, and elegiac erhu and pipa melody which transports us effortlessly across entire continents, oceans, and winter prairies, into the dark holds of ships, the haunting magnificence of Astor’s very own Xanadu of Two Temple Place, smoke-drenched Victoriana London, even smokier opium dens and the burgeoning concrete mountain range of Manhattan across centuries and all the way to the present while acclaimed classical actor Daniel York Loh narrates his own epic text described by The Upcoming as ‘striking… his delivery of words portraying an array of emotions that perfectly complement the swell from the music…’ ‘As a concert pianist with a heritage rooted in East culture, the prospect of creating a project that harmoniously integrates traditions from both East and West is incredibly exciting. I embedded the distinctive sounds of Chinese instruments into a contemporary style, conveying a different musical expression.’ - An-Ting “I wanted to write about migrant journeys. About loss and loneliness, about what we take with us and what we leave behind, and the legacy we want to impart to the next generation. And what we’ll do to ‘belong’”. Daniel York Loh Originally commissioned as a live performance at Two Temple Place (the gothic London mansion William Waldorf Astor designed and had built for himself), but moved online as necessitated by the pandemic, every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon won the 2021 Arts Council Digital Culture Award (Storytelling) and was selected for the prestigious Horizon Showcase at Edinburgh Festival. It was performed live for the first time in Two Temple Place at the 2023 Kakilang Festival. Originally commissioned by Two Temple Place and Kakilang, every dollar is a soldier/with money you’re a dragon, is part gig-theatre, part spoken word rap, performed by writer and actor Daniel York Loh, set against a thrilling combination of electronic music composed by An-Ting 安婷 accompanied by classical Chinese instrumentation. AboutAn-Ting 安婷 is a versatile artist who thrives in piano, electronic compositions, and various other forms of artistic expression. Drawing from her life experiences, she weaves diverse encounters into her creations, blending music with other art forms to delve into the depths of the human experience. She has led and co-created productions including HOME X (nominated for UK Theatre Awards, first presented in Barbican), CAN X Two Temple Place: Digital Exhibition and Immersive Performance (Arts Council England's Digital Culture Award - Storytelling), Augmented Chinatown 2.0 (an app for AR, music and drama), Lao Can Impression (Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room) and Bats and Beats (Soundstate Festival, Shanghai tour). Between 2018 and 2023, she led the National Portfolio Organisation Kakilang, placing emphasis on establishing an artist-led structure, generating new narratives by Southeast and East Asian artists, and encouraging cross-artform collaborations. Her background presents a unique fusion of science and art, holding a degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University, alongside an MMus and PhD in performance from the Royal Academy of Music. An-Ting 安婷 has performed at venues such as Barbican, Southbank Centre, King's Place, LSO St Luke’s, Newbury Spring Festival, Deal Festival, the Akademie der Künste Berlin (Academy of Arts) and National Theater Taiwan. In 2012, An-Ting 安婷 founded Concert Theatre which pioneered a new hybrid genre mixing music and theatre. Productions such as Kiss of the Earth (UK tour, 2015) and The Tenant (National Portrait Gallery, 2017) were warmly received. She has released her albums Songs from My Room, Water Image, Carnival of the Animals and and is working on the next electronic album featuring natural field recordings of bird songs which will be released in February 2024. Daniel York Loh is a writer, actor, musician, and filmmaker. He is currently Associate Artistic Director of Kakilang, an award-winning Arts Council-funded combined arts company. As a writer, theatre includes: The Fu Manchu Complex (Ovalhouse/Moongate); Forgotten 遗忘
Source Let's Go Music News
March 5, 2024 9:41am ET by Let's Go Music News |
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