Fall 2021: Dreamwaking 拂晓之时

1. Lemon

Composer: Yonezu Kenshi
Arranger: Bianca Sheng
Soloist: Bianca Sheng
Conductor: Shenze Zhang

Lemon is a song composed and sung by Kenshi Yonezu himself, and is used as the theme song of “Unnatural Death”. The theme of the TV series is related to death. Kenshi Yonezu wants to make people pay attention to “death” through songs. During the composition of the song, his body and mind were already exhausted, and his grandfather passed away at that time. This made him rethink death, and he had a deeper understanding of death. As a song written to commemorate his grandfather, he incorporated his grief for the death of his relatives and his own insights into life and death.
When writing this work, I changed the whole song to the key suitable for female voices and let the tenor sing the harmony part so that the whole work is better integrated. For the soprano part I added a special melody, making the whole track sound more interesting and less sad.

Lemon 是由米津玄师自己作曲作词并且演唱的一首曲目，并且作为《非自然死亡》主题曲.电视剧的主题与死亡有关，米津玄师想要通过歌曲让人们能去重视“死亡”这一件事，从而建立了彼此的呼应。创作该歌曲期间，他的身心本来就充满劳累，而他的祖父又在那时候离开了人世。这让他对死亡的价值观认知全部归零，开始重新思考，也对死亡有了更深的体验。作为纪念祖父所创作的歌曲，他在曲中融入了对亲人逝去的哀伤与思念，和自己对于生死的考量。
在编写这首作品的时候，我将整首歌曲改成女生唱的key，并且由tenor来演唱旋律和声部分，让整首作品更好地融合在一起。soprano部分我加入了特别的旋律 ，让整首曲目听起来更加的有趣，并且不那么的悲伤。

3. You’ll See

Composer: Tizzy Bac
Arranger: Tony Wang
Soloist: Tony Wang
Conductor: Estee Chen

This is a song by the Taiwanese band Tizzy Bac, which is included in the album “I Think What You Are Like Now Is All My Fault”. Hui Ting’s piano is sometimes jumping and sometimes melodious. I highly recommend everyone to listen to this album. Hui Ting’s voice is very distinctive. After listening to this album, I feel very dreamy, lonely, and free and easy.

这首歌是台湾乐队Tizzy Bac的一首歌，收录于专辑《我想你会变成这样都是我害的》。惠婷的钢琴时而跳跃时而悠扬。超级推荐大家去听听这张专辑，惠婷的声音很有特色，听完这张专辑给我的感觉是很天马行空，寂寞又洒脱的感觉。

5. Dear Theodosia

Composer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Arranger: Yihan Wang
Soloist: Troy Zhang, Henry Yang
Conductor: Estee Chen

Dear Theodosia is a song from the musical Hamilton. Different from other rap songs with complicated orchestra arrangements within the musical, Dear Theodosia is very simple yet very sweet, depicting the fatherly love Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr had for their children. It’s also a song that showcases the unusually gentle side of two political figures. In my eyes, parental love is the simplest and purest form of emotion. So, when I was arranging the ensemble, I adopted the simple chord progression from the original arrangement but emphasized on composing melody for some voice parts. Since this song tells the story of fatherly love, I deliberately composed the prominent counter melody for altos as a representation of motherly love just so the idea of family can be complete. When I was working on this song, these melodies weren’t really planned but instead just flowed into my head. Perhaps, my homesickness was already embedded in this song.

《Dear Theodosia》选自音乐剧 《Hamilton》。区别于剧中其他歌曲的rap形式和宏大的气势，《Dear Theodosia》是一首简单、甜蜜的歌曲，讲述了Alexander Hamilton和Aaron Burr作为父亲对于自己孩子的爱，展现了两位政治领袖充满了亲情的另一面。在我眼里亲情是最简单、最纯净的感情，所以在编写和声的时候，我沿用了原曲简单的和弦进程而侧重于一些声部的旋律作曲。因为这首歌是以父亲的视角描述了对孩子的爱，我有意在alto声部编写了主要的旋律来表现母亲的呼唤从而使这份爱更加完整。在创作过程中，这些旋律是并未经过仔细编排而自然浮现在我脑海中的。或许，我早已把想家的情感寄托到了这首歌上来了。

7. Baby, До свидания

(Baby, goodbye)

Composer: Pu Shu (Adapted by Zhou Shen)
Arranger: Estee Chen
Soloist: Estee Chen
Conductor: Shenze Zhang

Baby, До свидания is a song composed and lyrics by Pu Shu, adapted by Zhou Shen and sung in Singer, a Chinese variety show. The song begins with the famous Russian folk song “Red Plum Blossom”, which tells about the troubles of a Russian girl who loves a boy but can’t tell him about it. The song immediately turned into a brisk jazz style, narrating various love stories that happened in a Czech inn called “Dania“. Strange travelers and wanderers stayed here, met each other, and looked for company in this inn. Among them were musicians and dancers who were living alone in the Czech Republic; they have desires, hesitations, and dreams, trying to survive and thrive in a foreign country, but still suffer from loneliness. The young men and women fell in love in the inn, but separated eventually because of personal turmoil and anxiety, leaving only empty hotel rooms and endless stories that were composed into songs. The overall song is in a minor key, with a touch of sadness and helplessness permeating the keynote. До свидания means “goodbye” in Russian. Its pronunciation is “dasvidanya”, which is a homonym for the inn’s name. I was deeply moved when I heard Zhou Shen sing this song on Singer, and was shocked by its exquisite arrangement: “Red Plum Blossom” is a folk song while “Baby, До свидания” is a rock song , but the two styles mix well. The bel canto and jazz singing are both styles that I like very much.

Baby, До свидания 是一首由朴树作曲作词、周深改编并在歌手·当打之年上演唱的曲子。歌曲以俄罗斯著名的民歌《红梅花儿开》开头，讲述了一位俄罗斯姑娘对心上人的爱慕却说不出心事的烦恼。 歌曲随即转入轻快的爵士风，叙述了在一家叫”达尼亚”的捷克旅馆发生的种种爱情故事。陌生的旅人和流浪者们在这个旅馆停留、相遇、寻找陪伴，其中有落魄的音乐家，有孤身一人在捷克闯荡的舞蹈演员；他们有欲望、有彷徨、有梦想，在异国他乡试图留下自己的身影，但却总不免寂寞空凉。青年男女们在旅馆里坠入爱河，又因为个人的动荡和不安而分离，只留下空落落的旅馆房间和说不尽的被谱成曲的故事。歌曲整体是小调，基调弥漫着淡淡的伤感和无奈。До свидания 是俄语里”再见“的意思，它的读音是”dasvidanya”，和旅馆名称谐音。我在歌手上听到周深演唱这首歌就被深深感动，并为其精妙的编曲所震撼：《红梅花儿开》和《宝贝，达尼亚》看起来一个是民歌一个是摇滚，但两种风格混合在一起又毫无违和感，一个悠长一个轻快，美声和爵士唱法兼具，是我很喜欢的风格。

9. 开到荼蘼

(The Last Blossom)

Composer: C.Y.Kong
Arranger: Martin Shen
Soloist: Amelia Peng
Conductor: Estee Chen

The Last Blossom is a song written by Lin Xi and sung by Faye Wong. The lyrics start with an analogy about ants, saying that “their deviation is not even by one inch”, which corresponds to the following lyrics, “the difference between people is no bigger than the difference between the sky and the earth”. Since everyone is the same, don’t hold on to those who fail you. However, there are many people who treat the people they like as gods and idols. They lack reason and let their fantasies drive them. In the end, the relationship breaks down and causes a huge psychological gap. In this time of setbacks, people’s feelings and passions are slowly consumed and finally wiped out, so that when you meet people with good feelings, you will feel the crush, but you also know you won’t have the courage to start a new relationship. Everyone you meet will look like a uniform ant, which can’t stir up any emotion in your heart.

开到荼蘼是由林夕作词，王菲演唱的一首歌。 以蚂蚁开篇，”偏差没有一毫厘“，对应后面人的 “相差大不过天地”。既然每个人都差不多，也就不要对辜负你的人死心塌地了。但偏偏有很多人，把自己喜欢的人奉若神明，当成偶像，缺乏理智而任凭幻想趋使，最后感情破裂造成巨大的心理落差。就在这一次次挫折中，人的感情和激情被慢慢消耗最终磨灭，以至于再遇到有好感的人，有一煞那心花怒放的感觉，却也深知不会再有勇气去展开新的尝试了。最后遇到的每一个人，在眼里都像整齐划一的蚂蚁，激不起心里的一丝波澜。

11. 久石让传奇

(The Legend of Joe Hisaishi)

Composer: Joe Hisaishi
Arranger: Bianca Sheng, Estee Chen
Soloist: Amelia Peng, Bianca Sheng, Frank Dong, Estee Chen
Conductor: Shenze Zhang

Hisaishi Joe is a famous composer in Japan, and a composer that I personally admire and love very much. His works have a great influence on me. I hope to express these works’ emotions in a different way through PennEnchord’s singing. For this arrangement, I combined seven of Hisaishi Joe’s famous works including Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Summer, Spirited Away, Laputa in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. This piece contains feelings of joy, sadness, playfulness, longing and so on. And in order to highlight the beauty of PennEnchord singers’ voices, I also added a part where different parts take turns to sing the melody of Spirited Away‘s theme song, showing the unique advantages of each voice part. In Summer, I also added bbox as a rhythmic embellishment, highlighting the cheerful summer atmosphere.

久石让是日本著名的作曲家，也是我个人非常崇拜与喜爱的作曲家.他的作品对我有非常大的影响，我希望通过我们安可的歌声来用一种不同的方式来表达这些作品的情绪。这首Arrangement 我结合的久石让著名作品旋律包括：波妞，龙猫，魔女宅急便，summer，千与千寻，天空之城和幽灵公主。这首作品包含了欢快，悲伤，俏皮，思念等等的感情。并且为了突出安可的可塑性，我还特别在千与千寻主旋律里加入了声部轮流演唱主旋律的部分，发挥出每个声部独特的优势。在其中的summer旋律中，我还加入了bbox作为节奏的点缀，突出了夏日欢快的氛围。