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Bridge I

Heena Yoon, Nay & Composition

Multi-cultural Music Series 1: 
"Bridge I" is composed for solo nay, middle Eastern flute, with a deep care of its own tone color, virtuosic techniques, idiomatic phrases from traditional Arab music approach plus new compositional freedom. It consists of three parts: fast and festive, slow and lyrical, and concluding section.

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Bridge II

Multi-cultural Music Series : Bridge II for nay and flute (2016)

Adriane Hill, flute; Heena Yoon, nay & composition 

"East and West come together, in the spirit of harmony, as she blends eastern spiritual longings with Western painting techniques" - Salma Aratsu's exhibition at UCSB Multicultural Center, Fall 2015.
Inspired by Salam Aratsu's paintings, Bridge II (2016) is an attempt to explore the possibility of "between," where the two different words meet each other: not here, not there, but somewhere in between. Not this one, not that one, but something in between.
Coming from totally different two worlds, nay from Arab music and flute from Western European music seek to reach each other, despite the difference of tuning, timbre and limits that the instruments have, while preserving each instrument's own beauty and characters.

* 2016 Corwin Music Award

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Bridge II for flute and nay

Adriane Hill, flute; Heena Yoon, nay & composition

Santa Barbara, CA

Burst!

for spoken word and piano

Multi-culture & Community reachout series 

Keith Mar, spoken poem; composition & piano, Heena Yoon

After immigrating to the States and undergoing cultural adaptation, I became deeply interested in listening to stories of people with less dominating background in the States. The first thing I did was attending many of events that UCSB multicultural center offered. There were several reasons why I did that : I found a huge gap between what people believe and what the reality is in terms of diversity in the States; I thought majority of people have very shallow or even no understanding and knowledge and sensitiveness to the "diverse" group of the society;  as an only woman, only non-native English speaker, only Asian in my small field of music composition at my school, I wanted to find more stories of diverse groups of people and listened to what kind of struggles, hardships, feelings they have in their mind - and wanted to find a common ground with them, by helping those stories to be heard more, and having more audiences to be aware of those "unspoken" stories. By doing so, I also wanted to expand the target of the audience, inviting those who never come to the new music concert to this performance, and offering the existing regulars a new chance of awareness, sensitiveness and empathy towards people from less dominant cultural background.  

 

At one of the events of UCSB multicultural center, I had an opportunity to meet a spoken-poet Keith Mar, a counsellor with a Chinese ancestor background.  Written to be "performed," his poems were the perfect match to music, and it was truly moving to hear the struggles he had while growing up as an only Asian kid in his class. His self-discovery poem was the way he healed his deep wound. 

Here I did not try to compose a piece that followed the flow of his poem or described the emotions his poem carries. I wanted my music to be an equivalent part to his narration - calm, tranquil, even in the storm, as if the center of the torrent. 

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Burst! 

Keith Mar, Spoken word

Heena Yoon, Piano & Composition

Santa Barbara, CA

Voice and a Fountain Pen

for solo piano

inspired by Spanish writer Carlos Luiz Zafón's novel The Shadow of the Wind. 

 Performed by Heena Yoon, Koln, Germany, July 2016  

"a song in praise of severe youth on the road. Moon blindness, Maturity in immaturity, The eternal human stupidity of pursuing those who hurt us the most, Immortality in a grave, Courage to write, say, resist, and attempt again until there are no voices left to tell the forgotten stories. Eternity in a moment." 

In the Cemetery of Forgotten Books...''Gabriel García Márquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges'' for a sprawling magic show - The New York Times Book Review of THE SHADOW OF THE WIND,  APRIL 25, 2004

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Voice and a Fountain Pen 

Heena Yoon, Piano & Composition 

Koln, Germany 

fffffff!

fun fearless flamenco-inspired piece for two flutes,  ffffffff! 

performed by Adriane Hill and Cynthia Vong

August 17, 2017, UCSB Summer Music Festival, Santa Barbara, CA 

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ffffffff! - Heena Yoon
00:00 / 00:00

(To see the score, click the title)

Through Ho'oponopono(ho-o-pono-pono), an ancient Hawaiian healing and purifying practice, we are sucked into a voyage to seek a path of spiritual renewal. Encountering with our trauma, and being aware that karmic bondages influence all of life, we are close to the divine energy in our mind. All are set free. Feeling the energy, we repeat, "I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. And I love you."

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(This is a studio recording version, not the live version of the video. To see the video recording of dance and live music, click here.)

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