Katie Yap and Mindy Meng Wang weave a rich cloth of identity and community

Katie Yap | Multitudes: Migrant Swift with Mindy Meng Wang

November 17, 2023, Tempo Rubato

Guest review by Ruby Shirres

At Katie Yap’s most recent sold-out concert in her Multitudes series, she wove together a story of identity and community that all in the audience could connect to. Held at Brunswick’s Tempo Rubato amongst the twinkling of fairy lights and eucalyptus leaves, this was the third in a quartet of shows running throughout the month of November. 

The artists, Katie Yap (viola/voice/curator) and Mindy Meng Wang (guzheng/voice), spent the evening moving gracefully between improvisation, traditional Chinese folk songs, Western art music and contemporary classical, navigating their instruments and the connections formed through the program with skill and ease. In this instalment of her Freedman Fellowship and Creative Australia supported project, Katie aimed to explore the musical intersection of her Chinese and white Australian heritage. 

The concert opened with a traditional Chinese folk tune Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower) which welcomed the audience with a beautiful, trickling melody initiated by the guzheng which the viola interspersed with warm harmonics, before the two instruments traded roles. 

Exploring the viola from a western angle, Katie then played a continuous set of three works preceded by an explanation of their personal significance. The first was a sweet, lilting lullaby written by Katie herself, with a skipping melody and recurring droning dissonance. In her introduction to the set she mentioned that she composed the lullaby as a salve for the “sense of splintering” which she felt after the results of the recent Voice to Parliament referendum. The Allemande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 emerged out of a seamless segue, featuring a beautiful, halting vocal quality and ornamented melodic lines. There was a sense of disquiet in Katie’s performance, an acknowledgment of the dissonance and tension which propelled the harmonic movement forward. The final piece in the set was ko’u inoa by Leilehua Lanzilotti, which is a spectral piece humming with life, consisting of repetitive chordal barriolage and a haunting melodic vocal line. The audience sat at once mesmerised and lulled. 

Two pieces completed the first half: Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel, in which Mindy Meng Wang broke out of the traditional role of the Guzheng with ambled arpeggiated chords underpinned by resonating bass notes, and a traditional Chinese song, Yang Guan San Die (Thrice Parting for Yang Guan). The song was introduced as a sung poem that tells the sorrowful story of someone expelled from their home country and banished beyond a gate. The melody in the guzheng brought to mind early Hollywood depictions of the Wild West with enigmatic glisses coaxing a sense of lonely open landscapes. 

Mindy Meng Wang performed alone after the interval in Water improvisation, showcasing the guzheng with intricate overlapping looped textures, layered like rippling waves reflecting the moon at night. The sound world was harp-like, strummed and plucked in a manner both introspective and assured.

Next, the two performers launched into the centrepiece of the program, the world premiere of Migrant Swift, composed by Katie Yap and Mindy Meng Wang collaboratively. After tuning the viola’s lowest string down a sixth to better match the tone of the guzheng, the piece opened with an elemental, violent chord. The work went on to display a range of contrasting colours and textures: soundless bowing on the viola, the plucked guzheng tinkling in the upper registers, followed by richer unconventional bowed tones on the lower strings. What started as a living room conversation about the Judith Wright poem of the same name, sparking stories of overseas migration and “finding common ground” was transformed into a violently interactive performance brought to life by the two performers. This gripping piece was thrilling to witness and is testament to the imagination and vulnerability of the performer-composers. 

Finally, in a binding aspect of the Multitudes residency, Katie guided the room in an inclusive, audience-sung refrain of Teri Young’s Prayer in three part harmony with instrumental lines and sweet vocal verses. A thoughtful touch to the program, it felt as though a small piece of the community fabric would be carried forth by each of the departing audience members.

Photo credit: Darren James