KONG (2011)
for chamber ensemble
I. Vacant: The Enlighten Emptiness
II. Vain: The Actuality for Nothing
III.Vest: The Settlement of Freedom
Kong is the mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese character “空”, which is often translated into English as emptiness. Emptiness is a very important concept in both Buddhist and Chinese Philosophy. In Buddhism all things are totally empty of any defining essence because things are changing constantly. Not only are that, but if we analyse any phenomenon in enough detail we come to the conclusion that thing exists purely by definitions in terms of other things– and one of those is always the mind which generates those definitions.
Like all Chinese charters, the character “空” has a lot of meaning and the exact meaning depends upon its context. This piece is composed based on the three most common definition of “空: vacant, vain, and vast, which was portrayed in the three movement respectively.