for Flute, Clarinet, Cello, Live Electronics & Video
Claudio Pasceri x TimeArt Studio x EstOvest Festival／時間藝術工作室
Commissioned by NCAF & EstOvest Festival 2023 as the featured work of Composer in Resident
Performed at the Festival’s “Suoni Ancestrali” Concert at La Venaria Reale Torino, premiere at National Taichung Theatre
Program Note
TimeArt Studio has long been dedicated to international collaboration and artistic exchange through contemporary music festivals. After nearly three years of pandemic-induced hiatus, TimeArt Studio resumed its international projects in 2023, with a renewed invitation to the EstOvest Festival in Italy—an important platform for contemporary music that features renowned composers, performers, and young artists. In recent years, the festival has gained international recognition for its interdisciplinary and cross-cultural productions, aligning closely with TimeArt Studio’s vision. In addition to the ensemble’s October visit to Italy, EstOvest’s Artistic Director Claudio Pasceri was invited to Taiwan in April 2024 for a concert, lecture, and masterclass series. Composer Tak Cheung Hui was commissioned to create a new work for this occasion, written for cello, flute, clarinet, synthesizer, and live electronics.
The resulting piece, originally titled Ring… Tree Rings III and later renamed Ashes to Ashes II, is a continuation of the interdisciplinary project Ashes to Ashes. The original work merges archaeoacoustics, historical research, and live performance to recontextualize the auditory history of San Salvador City in Taiwan. Drawing from 16th- and 17th-century artifacts—such as Dominican chants and indigenous oral traditions—the project employed 3D-printed instruments, physical modeling synthesis, and data sonification to reconstruct long-forgotten soundscapes. Through this fusion of archaeology and sound art, the work bridges cultural memory with contemporary sonic practice.
Ashes to Ashes II builds on this foundation by integrating live instrumental performance with electronic sound processing, exploring how sound can become a medium for historical resonance and collective reflection. The piece premiered at the Claudio Pasceri × TimeArt Studio × EstOvest Festival concert in May 2023 at the National Taichung Theater and was later presented in Italy at the 2023 EstOvest Festival.
Tak-Cheung Hui 