Artwork: Sound Arts

1. Beethoven(貝多芬) Piano Sonata Nr. 1 - 14 (Senza Misura)







Beethoven Piano Sonata, nr.1 - nr.14 (Senza Misura) from Samson Young on Vimeo.






This is an sound and light installation which using breadboard, circuits, jumper wires, light-emitting diodes and speakers. The whole installation contains 14 devices, each of which is playing the tempo of a single movement of Beethoven's early piano sonatas.

Question:
1. Instead of using sound and light, do you think other visual elements could be applied to this project?


2. Since your project is about the historical development of the contemporary music, do you think general public can understand your thought behind this project? If not, in what way do you think they can benefit from this project?

Interview: Samson Young and Olivia De Prato, RTHK "the Works," July 2008.

In this interview, Samson describes about his works. He likes to use some traditional, classical or acoustic interments in his works and adds some videos and multimedia elements.

Then he talk about why he add visual elements into music performance. It is because he try to use these elements for audience to visualise the music and let people feel more about his music.

He describes his music or work are quite electronic and dark.

Interview: Samson Young and Hong Kong young composers, Cable TV, August 2008.

In this interview, Samson first talk about what will he be more consider when composing song. That is the gesture or the action of the musician when play his  song. He will exaggerate some gestures when he thinks is more important or can give audience a powerful visual impact.


Samson always hope that his music are just for a particular space. He does not expect people listen his music at home because of the visual elements.

Interview: Samson Young, Cable TV, August 2008.

In this interview, Samson first mentioned his experience or thought on listening music. He thinks that listening music is not just the sound, but also some visual elements. For example, you will recognized the gestures of a conductor in a concert and other musician how to respond with that gestures. That is all the visual elements that can be seen in a normal concert. 


Samson used a lot of animations and some visual elements in his work and give audience new experience in listening music. When the interviewer discussing whether these elements will disrupt the people, he explained that all these elements won't being disruption, and all of these can help audience entering the world of the music, only if the visual elements are well organized and planed.


Beside using animations, Samson also used different material to replace strings on a violin which gives audience totally different feeling on sound and music. That all new thinkings of music let Samson has a lot of chance to exhibit his works on art festivals. 

Artwork: Installation

1. Ride Me Like a Cowboy

This is a installation which use sound and video with coin-operated amusement ride, DVD player, video monitor and tape recording.

Question:
1. Is the idea of this installation inspired from your childhood?
2. Do you think your audience understand the hidden message you want to share?

Introduction

Samson loves music, composition. Samson is a composer artist who have formal training in music composition and classical musical tradition. Samson also play music with many other technologies representations to let audience to feel his music. They use videos, visual effects, animations, installations, gameboys or even IPhone to integrate to his project. 

Background of our target artist

Samson Young

Samson Young (b.1979) is one of Hong Kong’s most sought-after composers today. With formal training in music composition, an eye for visuals and a keen interest in emergent technologies, Young has been known to combine his diverse expertise into uniquely intermedia experiences. His works are fundamentally informed by an engagement with new cultural-technological paradigms, yet deeply grounded in the classical musical tradition. Young’s creative output spans the widest possible range: from composition for orchestra and gameboys, to amusement ride-turned-sound installation, to ensembles of ipad and iphones, to multimedia music theatre. Described by Sequenza 21 as “epic, dark and fun,” a sense of play that comes from breaking down preconceived boundaries unifies all of his work.

Special focuses:

• a new breed of composer-artists whose work speak to communities across disciplinary divides
• the first from Hong Kong to receive the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award with his audio-visual project “the Happiest Hour.” In 2009
• CNN’s global portalCNNgo named him one of the top “20 people to watch in Hong Kong
• was Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s artist associate in the 2008/09 season
• maintained a close relationship with the orchestra
• working in the capacity of composer-director in a range of multimedia productions

Production (Example):

• Electric Kinderszenen, a piano-installation project featuring Colleen Lee; Box of Revelation, a multimedia rendition of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps; 
• and the popular “Know-Your” concert series

Young is currently a Ph.D fellow at Princeton University, and an assistant professor in Critical Intermedia Art at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. His mentors include Chan Hing-yan and electronic music pioneer Paul Lanksy.