16 | Tuesday, September 1, 2020 HONG KONG EDITION | DAILY LIFE

based on youth culture is cooperat­ ing with more and expanding in the field of original US author’s music in China. Du says she has been following manuscript news of Modern Sky for years since it has been promoting Chinese bands. on Japan’s Birthday “I also have my own band and enjoy pushing boundaries, which is fun and cool.” invasion Her next album, also to be released by Modern Sky, will feature JINAN — This year marks the her band, OK Miss, which consists 75th anniversary of the victory of rock and chamber musicians. The in the War of Resistance gift New York Times once described the Against Japanese Aggression band as “an indie pop diva with an (1931­45), which falls on Thurs­ avant­garde edge”. day. A manuscript, collected by Born and raised in , Du a translator from Shandong Du Yun’s new started to play the piano when she province, uncovers facts buried was 4 years old. in the fierce war. album, produced by Modern She studied composition at the Now being carefully restored middle school affiliated to the by the translator and writer Wang Sky, comes amid the pandemic, Shanghai Conservatory of Music — Jinling, the manuscript by US Chen Nan reports. she has been writing music since novelist Irving Wallace, reveals she was 11. the Japanese army’s atrocities Du moved to the United States in and Chinese people’s struggle in 1997 to further her study. She gradu­ the most desperate condition. ated from the Oberlin Conservatory “Wallace and his family always of Music with a bachelor’s degree in care about China’s condition and composition and received her PhD development,” says Wang, who in music composition from Harvard recently received an email from omposer Du Yun’s latest Both versions are included in her Wuhan, Hubei province. Yang had University. Wallace’s son, sending regards work, A Cockroach’s Taran­ new album, in which Du performs sent Du sound samples of Wuhan Du’s second , Angel’s Bone, and expressing his concern about tella, is a six­minute musi­ with JACK Quartet, featuring violin­ after the lockdown was lifted. Du won a in China’s COVID­19 situation. cal and video based on an ists Christopher Otto, Austin Wulli­ improvised on them. 2017, making her the first Asian The manuscript dates back to Cearlier longer piece. With animation man, violist John Pickford Richards “The resurgent sounds, such as woman to receive this award for 1940, when Wallace was a jour­ by Julian Crouch, music for the new and cellist Jay Campbell. people in a local market, were my music. Premiered in New York in nalist assigned to the Far East by work has been composed by Du for The US quartet was founded in inspiration,” says Du. “It would be a 2016, the opera tells the story of two a US magazine to report the war string quartet and narration. 2005 and has played Du’s works totally different album if I had angels who land on Earth. After between China and Japan, part of “I have been pregnant for as long before. But this is their first collabo­ released it last year or next year. The being discovered by a financially the world’s anti­fascist war. as I can remember … I do not, how­ ration in a recording album. situation of my life connects with troubled couple, the angels are At that time, Wallace managed ever, remember the last time I used “The first day of our rehearsals the musical pieces I wrote.” forced into slavery to make money to collect information from both my scent to attract my husband. It was June 18, my birthday. So it felt Prologue, another improvisation, for them. sides. He interviewed several has been too long. Because theologi­ like a gift,” says Du, who lives in New is the album’s ending work. In 2019, Du was nominated for a core figures behind Japan’s A Cockroach’s Tarantella is cally, (well, theologically), you see, York, adding that she felt excited Du has included her 2014 piece, Grammy Award in the best classical expansionist policy, including the title work of Du Yun’s lat­ we don’t need to mate that often. It’s about going back to the rehearsal Tattooed in Snow, in the new album. composition category with Air Hideki Tojo, as well as common est album. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY not required by the law,” Du nar­ after New York City began reopen­ It explores “the temporary and frag­ Glow, a 15­minute piece for trumpet people from the two countries. rates in the role of a female cock­ ing in mid­June after months of ile crystallization in nature and in ensembles, electronics and guitar. He made scrupulous records roach. lockdown restrictions due to the space”, she says. “All the recognition helped me to about several major events in “I am bored with this life … My COVID­19 pandemic. “Even if I write an obscure story expand my career and fulfill my Japan’s invasion of China. biggest wish is to be our enemy, the “I used to have a hectic schedule with music, as long as the audience dreams. It allowed me to deliver my Besides writing articles for the humans. They seem to have a good and flew all the time. The viral out­ finds emotional resonance, I would messages to more audiences,” says magazine, he decided to write a life. You see, from what I have heard break forced me to stay at home. think I have accomplished my Du. book to expose Japan’s ambitions they say that most of the human When everything got back to semi­ goal.” In recent years, Du has also been and the crimes it committed in women are pregnant out of love.” normal, I was touched, and it felt Du recently announced a three­ working with and oral China to the rest of the world. The piece is the title work of Du’s like we were starting over again,” year cooperation with Modern Sky. traditions. In 2017, she launched However, his plan to publish latest album released by Modern she says via email. “With this signing (of the latest the Future Tradition Initiative that the book was postponed due to Sky, an indie record label in China. The album consists of five inde­ album), Du Yun will bring new collaborates with folk artists the Pearl Harbor bombing, after About the origin of A Cockroach’s pendent works. The opening piece, works to expand the boundaries of around the world. which the United States declared Tarantella, Du says it started with titled Epilogue, is based on a field contemporary in war on Japan and other fascist the first chamber opera, titled Zolle, recording by Southern Weekly China with Modern Sky,” the com­ Contact the writer at countries. Since then, the manu­ which she wrote in 2004. reporter Yang Nan, from a market in pany says, adding that the label [email protected] script remained dust­laden for Zolle was an opera­theater narra­ decades. Its special value was tive of a dead woman wandering discovered by Wang after he was through the shadowy space between granted the translation right of memory and reality. Wallace’s work by the family. “As I was finishing Zolle, I created “No matter how long it was another piece that would serve as sealed, the truth of history will the life­before fable, which became finally emerge and be known by A Cockroach’s Tarantella. At that people,” Wang says. time, I was living in a subsidized stu­ The manuscript was translat­ The viral outbreak dent apartment. When I would take ed into Chinese and published in breaks from my work, particularly China in 2005, titled Japan’s forced me to stay at in the early hours, I would talk to the Mein Kampf. In the book, Wal­ home. When many cockroaches that shared my lace wrote about the Nanjing residence. Both stories are steeped Massacre that “there were more everything got back in humankind’s ubiquitous fascina­ men, handcuffed back to back, to semi­normal, I tion with regression, the conflict of stood up against walls being belonging and alienation, and the used as living dummies for real was touched, and it resurrection archetype,” explains bayonet practice”. felt like we were the composer, who’s in her early 40s. Wallace died of cancer in 1990, In 2010, the English version of A but his articles are valuable starting over again.” Cockroach’s Tarantella premiered records of that part of history Du Yun, composer in New York. In 2019, Du visited and have made more people Beijing to stage the original Chi­ aware of China’s role in the anti­ nese piece along with the Mahler fascist war. Chamber at the . JACK Quartet from the United States collaborates with Du Yun on her latest album. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY XINHUA