LUCINA YUE, Transcendent Phoenix

Over the past three decades, a handful of prominent contemporary classical artists have used their art in service of unique retellings of the phoenix mythology, drawing upon the creature’s heartrending death/rebirth symbolism and exploring themes of renewal and resilience – most notably, Thea Musgrave’s Phoenix Rising (1997), Stellah Sung’s The Phoenix Rising (2008) and Fénix by Juan María Solare (2013). With the release of her perfectly titled third work Transcendent Phoenix, konghou (Chinese harp) virtuoso Lucina Yue immerses deeper into and expands upon her empowering musical aesthetic further than ever before, presenting a fascinating and intricate cultural/historical twist on the legendary, long-lived bird, revealing herself as a deeply soulful and thoughtful master storyteller.   

Listeners new to Yue’s truly mesmerizing, multi-faceted artistry may not need a full summary of her achievements to appreciate her meticulous yet full-throttled re-imaginings of works by  Golden Bell Award winner Dongqing Fang, Enescue Competition Gold Medalist Tian Tian,  ASCAP Morton Gould Award nominee Sam Wu and others. Her dynamic, sometimes delicate, freeflowing and dreamy, often intense and hard driving interactions with storied greats like veteran harpist Susan Jolles (Percussia), percussionist Gabriel Globus-Hoenich and cellists Qiang Tu (NY Phil), Nan-Cheng Chen (Evergreen Symphony Orchestra) and Chang Pan (Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra) stand and inspire as singular and stellar creative achievements distinctive from any other modern classical works.     

For those interested, however, it bears mentioning that Yue is world renowned for reviving and modernizing the Konghou (whose history stretches back over 2,000 years in China) as well as playing the Guzheng. The first to introduce the Konghou in the US, famously debuting it with a symphony at Lincoln Center and at New York Fashion Week, she studied at Bard College and earned several major honors including winning CCTV’s Folk Music Contest and many gold awards at Chinese competitions. In 2018, she became the first Chinese soloist to perform at Madison Square Garden, and later the first konghou artist to appear at Carnegie Hall.

As the impassioned narrative of Transcendent Phoenix flows from Feng’s opening, wildly expressive, mood swinging Ice & Fire Suite – which drifts from the peaceful and lilting “A Dance of Ice to the epically anxious, boisterous and chaotic “A Dance of Fire” – through composer Xijin Liu’s sparse, alternately darkly hypnotic and cautiously optimistic “Earth (Drunken Sage in the Mud),” the listener is treated not only to a manifestation of the historic revival of the Konghou but some impressive intertwining history lessons told by the movement of the pieces which uses the Chinese version of the Phoenix legend as a parallel to the re-emergence of this ancient instrument.  

The Konghou was popular from the Han to Tang dynasties (206 BC – 907 AD) before declining around the 14^th Century and being dormant for centuries before a revival in the 20^th Century with modern innovations like double strings, borrowing from Western harps but retaining unique Chinese features like the phoenix head – the latter element which provides thematic thrust to Transcendent Phoenix. Interestingly, it had disappeared by the 14^th Century (Ming Dynasty). In Chinese legend, Honghu refers to the mythical white phoenix or a large, high flying bird (swan or goose) that symbolizes vast ambition, purity an the aspiration to achieve ultimate spiritual greatness. It’s often linked to the powerful Ming Dynasty founder, the Hongwu Emperor.

While the Honghu is often associated with the celestial phoenix, it also represents extraordinary individuals working towards major goals and embodying lofty ideas and embracing human potential. As she slowly embodies the unfolding manifestation of this ascendent journey, Yue works her resonant wonder on many other grand pieces filled with rich symbolic imagery, including the initially graceful and angelically swirling, then increasingly cacophonous “Flute and Drum at Sunset/Flowery Moonlit River in Spring,” the bookended seasons of Yartsa Gumbu’s “Winter Worm” and “Summer Grass,”  the emotionally immersive “Blue Light Opens Dream’s Shadow” (featuring the eloquent, then explosive piano of Bowei Chen) and “The End of Snow Is Nirvana,” a piece originally composed for harp which Yue gave its konghou adaptation premiere in 2021.

Transcendent Phoenix was mastered by Grammy winning legend Alan Silverman, whose extensive credits include artists in the realms of rock, jazz, R&B, folk, film and world music.