Pablo Rubio Vargas：ži’ilœ

Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Turning Point Ensemble / Chih-Sheng Chen / National Recital Hall, Taipei, Taiwan 2019.3.24

The word ži’ilœ is the term for “East” in the Zapoteco language, and refers to the work’s compositional process, which uses bird-song recordings from the East. Using digital tools, the recordings are analyzed to defragment the sonic material, then re-orchestrated and recombined with electronic sound. The result is not so much an evocation of the birds’ singing, as a timbral re-construction of it.

—Pablo Rubio Vargas (Edit: Patty Chan)