Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen, 2009.

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This work is based on the poem "Li Po" by José Juan Tablada, who based this text on the life and work of the Chinese poet Li Bai. Tablada supports the story told in the poem through the use of calligrams. The first time I encountered this poem, I was amazed by its visual presentation, but it was when I discovered the beauty of the words hidden within the calligrams that I completely surrendered to Tablada and knew that I had to compose a work based on this poem.

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First, I recorded myself reading the poem repeatedly until I was satisfied with the recitation. Then, I made a detailed transcription of the recording into musical notation. Following that, I recorded each phoneme separately, and using a spectral analyzer, I obtained the series of formants for the timbre of each phoneme.

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Finally, I prepared the electronic part of the work using the phonemes and the recording of the recitation. Employing the poem as the structural framework, I composed the instrumental part based on the transcription of the recitation and the spectral analysis of the phonemes.​