Journey to the Cave of Guanyin by Theresa Wong

 

An album of diversity of moods and states, colours, hues and shades. Seven different tracks with spiritual undertones and links to the Guanshiyin 觀世音, the embodiment of infinite compassion. A female deity but derived from the male Hindu Avalokitesvara. 

The fluidity that the main protagonist of this album has permeates over the sound of the whole album. Its resonance and dynamic energy is everything here. Theresa plays solo cello, but the density and the multi-colour and the structures can take up the whole mind space. 

A rare occasion of a compositional value that has so many aspects and difficult to classify - yet - through the personal narrative and understanding how the values and their translation into the musical language works opens so many different worlds. 

A beauty of its own kind, a conscious realm of music.  

From Theresa

The inspiration for these pieces comes from the Chinese folklore of Guanyin, a deity whose name translates to ‘the one who perceives all the sounds, or cries, of the world’. Also known as Guanshiyin 觀世音, she is the embodiment of infinite compassion. I grew up knowing of Guanyin as a female deity, but recently discovered that she had transformed through the centuries from the male Hindu bodhisattva, Avalokiteśvara. I instantly found an affinity for this gender-fluid figure, who was said to have attained enlightenment through meditation on sound.

These pieces offer an imaginary story of a humble seafarer (Guanyin is a popular matron saint of fisherfolk), who returns from the tumult of the sea one evening at dusk. They journey into a seaside cave in a cliff nearby to find solace in prayer to Guanyin. Deep within the chambers of this glistening cave, an encounter with the mystical deity brings comfort and healing while the churning of life outside persists.

Perhaps it was out of a premonition that I created these pieces, which became one of the few things I could listen to during an intensely challenging year of my life. All the music is played on solo and multi-tracked acoustic cello. Many pieces are created around the repetition of simple phrases, like a sonic mantra repeated to focus and ease the mind. The cello is tuned down to a fundamental of A=216 Hertz, and the harmonies are composed in just intonation, a tuning system based on the natural overtones of resonating frequencies. In tracks 5 and 7, the lower strings are detuned extremely to a precise tension, creating a drone that contains both noise and specific overtones. In this manner of playing, I often have the feeling of ‘splitting the sound open’ into a composite of rhythm, harmony, melody and noise through playing beating frequencies, fingered overtones, implicit melodies emerging out of undulating harmonics, and the pure growl of the slackened string.

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I hope the listener will find rest and repose ­in this music, amidst the ever-compounding churning of our present world. My deepest thanks to Lawrence English, Janet Oh, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and the Emily Harvey Foundation for supporting this work. 

Theresa Wong, cello

Recorded and mixed by Theresa Wong

Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space

Tracks 2 & 5 recorded at the Emily Harvey Residency, Venice, Italy, February 2023

Tracks 1,3,4,6, & 7 recorded at Casa Ninja, Berkeley, California, December, 2023 – January 2024

Special thanks to Lawrence English, Janet Oh, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and Emily Harvey Foundation

cover photo: Theresa Wong

All music composed by Theresa Wong, The Orange Route, ASCAP

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