curled orange (2025) solo viola and electronics · 6 minutes · advanced+
curled orange was commissioned by Golden Hornet for violist Luis Eduardo Bellorín and was premiered on May 25, 2025 at the 3rd annual Here Be Monsters presented by Tetractys New Music in Austin, TX.
curled orange draws from breakcore (Machine Girl, femtanyl), Chinese erhu music (pitch bending), video game music (Touhou Project), and the contemporary percussion repretoire.
The electronic content of the track is entirely derived from a sample of the hammered dulcimer, from Henna Chou’s Sample Pack from the Golden Hornet Sample Library (MXTX-HC_dulcimer_one_shot_rainy_delay.wav). All of the synth sounds are constructed through cutting up and processing various portions of this sample, with pitch-bending applied to create notes and harmony. No synths or any other samples are used to create the track.
curled orange refers to the Chinese practice of letting orange peels dry out as a token of good luck. I often found orange peels around my childhood home, left to dry.
This is a weird moment of cultural clash for me, because in American culture this would be seen as leaving trash around. It’s an even stronger contrast when you consider that Asians are often stereotyped as being clean.
When I was much younger, sometimes I was encouraged to learn traditional Chinese musical instruments, such as the yang qin, a Chinese hammered dulcimer, and the erhu, which is similar to the violin. I was seriously encouraged to learn string instruments as opposed to percussion, because it was seen as more “proper” for an Chinese kid.
Sometimes, I feel like people still associate with me with very gentle “Asian” melodies even though the vast majority of my compositional output thus far has been for percussion, or otherwise people associate “Asian” music with calm and gentleness.
curled orange is still Asian—it takes influence from these traditional Chinese musical instruments—even though it’s loud and pointed and percussive. It’s at odds with expectations.
It’s like those dried orange peels.