How does folding colorful pieces of paper lead to a symphonic outpouring of sound? Ask senior Richard Li, the student composer and clarinetist who inspired the East Chamber Orchestra’s March concert, and continues to invent new melodic works.
“I was simply toying around with origami while volunteering, and then I started hearing all these different sounds in my head, beginning with the different string instruments,” said Li, who is dual-enrolled as a student at the UNC Department of Music. “Inspiration doesn’t come from any one place; oftentimes it’s an amalgamation of things you experience, hear or read about.”
His piece written for orchestra and clarinet quintet, “One Thousand Origami Cranes,” borrows from a Japanese legend that impacted a young girl named Sadako Sasaki, who was only two years old when the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and lost every member of her family except her father. Later, Serrata was diagnosed with acute leukemia due to radiation exposure from the bombing, and was hospitalized at age 10. In the hospital, she set herself a goal of folding 1,000 origami cranes after her father described the ancient legend that promises recovery from illness for anyone who completes this feat.
Unfortunately, Sasaki passed away at the age of 12 on October 25, 1955. Unveiled on May 5, 1958, on Japanese Children’s Day, the Children’s Peace Monument in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park commemorates Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing. Recognizing that today paper cranes have become a global symbol of peace, Li hopes that especially given the wartime atrocities occurring in Ukraine, his piece may be received as “hopeful and optimistic, expressing a longing for peace.”
This summer, Li, who is now an ECHO staff writer, further expanded his capabilities by learning under the expertise of many esteemed Pulitzer and Grammy winning professors at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) and the Atlantic Music Festival (AMF) in Maine, as well as premiered several new compositions including a string trio and clarinet duo. At AMF, Li presented in a masterclass with the dean of Juilliard—which he described as a “very nerve-wracking” experience—and met the world-famous violinist Midori Goto backstage.
In July 2021, Li had the opportunity to work with a conductor and have his piece premiered at the Brevard Music Festival in Brevard, N.C., in addition to his sinfonietta “A Visitor’s Guide to the Lovely Town of Front Royal,” which serves as a travel guide to Front Royal, Virginia, with each “episode” of the music depicting a part of the town that Li has loved visiting.
Li traces the origins of his fascination with composing back to seventh grade, when he remembers being curious about the various musical structures and elements of the pieces he was playing.
“I had always wondered, ‘How does this work?’ How do so many things work together to produce such beautiful sounds?’ Li said.
His middle school math teacher helped spark his curiosity by introducing him to music theory, which Li mostly taught himself until his completion of AP Music Theory his sophomore year. This year and last year, Li has commuted to UNC Chapel-Hill in the mornings to continue pursuing his studies in music theory.
“No one can teach you how to compose, but you can be taught how to use the concepts of theory,” Li said. “It’s kind of like math, in learning how to calculate an equation.”
For many of his compositions, Li enjoys listening to his favorite composers, including Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Dvorak for timeless inspiration, as well as traditional Chinese and Japanese music stemming from his cultural background. Currently, Li is working on a string quartet that involves his own family’s journey of immigrating to the U.S. from China when he was in sixth grade, set to premiere this summer.
While telling stories is his primary focus, Li emphasized that ultimately composing is a highly technical process, often involving months of piecing together and experimenting with different musical components, as well as a significant editing period.
“After I get the idea for the type of story I want to tell, I’ll start with a basic form for my piece, such as binary or ternary forms, and then I’ll decide if I want it to sound more classical, Baroque, Romantic or contemporary,” he said.
While Li has finished a piece in as short a time as two days on deadline for a class, more often it takes him months or even an entire year to finish a piece before he is truly satisfied with the outcome. Even then, it is a very different experience working with an orchestra to acquire the desired sound.
“The truth is, the first time you hear your piece it’s not going to sound good. That’s just how it works. You have to be patient and work with the conductor, and the musicians, to see what’s working and what’s not in order to achieve the right balance.”
Li encourages his peers to listen more to classical music, and to broaden their repertoire to incorporate many varieties of composers. Ultimately, he hopes that they will not view classical music as exclusive or outdated, and that it can be enjoyed by everyone as a nuanced genre.
“There’s this stereotype that classical music is reserved only for old white people, but that’s really not true at all,” Li said. “I want people, especially my generation, to see classical music for its intricate beauty, woven of many diverse, complex components, and occurring in multiple varieties as something infinitely unique and fascinating.”
Main photo courtesy of Richard Li
