Made up of researchers, composers and performers of Chinese and western instruments, Tangram launched in 2019 as recipients of the Chinese Arts Now Artist Development Bursary and winners of Nonclassical's Battle of the Bands. They have worked with the London Symphony Orchestra, Silk Road Ensemble, New Earth Theatre, and are currently Associate Ensemble at SOAS University of London. Most recently, they have been announced as recipients of Jerwood Arts' inaugural Live Work Fund and the Genesis Foundation's Kickstarter Fund. Rockey Sun Keting directs the Tangram Voices concert series, a platform for emerging performers and composers to engage creatively with this vision by curating their own concerts.
In this video on the Tangram YouTube channel, Rockey Sun Keting shows us around her studio, introduces her music and discusses her compositional practice.
Rockey Sun Keting is also a London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composer Scheme 2021 participant:
“My piece ‘that which is unseen…’ was inspired by Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. During the lockdown, most of us have been under such extreme conditions, to keep at a social distance, to be aware of what used to be normal, what’s taken for granted and what used to be unseen. This piece is very much about how visual objects can be shaped into sound. it’s written for the empty space and the unseen that exist in between and around.”
Take a listen to Rockey Sun Keting's BBC Singers Commission A Cave of One’s Own for SATB voices and sitar on BBC Sounds.
Image by Kevin Leighton