蕭瑤 Yao Hsiao

     蕭瑤，1997年出生於臺灣基隆市。自9歲開始學鋼琴，師事盧易之教授、張庭蓁教、陳怡靜教授和李志怡教授；10歲開始學小提琴，師事蕭敦化教授；15歲開始學習作曲，師事David Dzubay教授、金希文教授、張玉樹教授、錢善華教授、李和莆教授和王樂倫教授；18歲時學習聲樂，師事楊艾琳教授。畢業於基市成功國小音樂班、基市成功國中音樂班、北市師大附中音樂班和國立臺灣師範大學音樂系。蕭瑤於2021年考取教育部公費留學考試，目前於美國Indiana University Jacobs School of Music就讀作曲碩士一年級。蕭瑤熱愛創作多元藝術結合之音樂作品，也擅長創作聲樂作品，喜愛以華夏古詩詞、日本俳句和英文詩為作曲題材。

    Yao Hsiao, born in 1997, is a composer and a pianist from Taiwan. She learned dancing and stared a drama for kids when she was young. She started to learn the piano and the violin when she was 7. Hsiao began to study composition as her major in high school and tried to combine different cultures into her compositions. In addition, Hsiao studied voice for one year and sang the role Christine Daaé in the musical by A. L. Webber, "The Phantom of the Opera” in the final representation recital in high school in 2015.

   During Hsiao’s undergraduate studies in National Taiwan Normal University, where she studied with Gordon Shi-Wen Chin, she held a piano recital and several composition recitals. Also, she learned dancing, theater and Chinese opera. In 2018, she composed for the music drama “The Merry Wives of Windsor” from an adaptation of the script by Shakespeare during a composition master class and participated in her own musical “Magic of Little Riding Hood” as a playwright, singer and composer. In 2020, Hsiao won the “Academic Merit Award” when she graduated from college. Hsiao has found inspiration for her composition from literature such as Western poems, Japanese haikus and ancient Chinese poetry. She is currently pursuing a MM degree in composition at the Indiana University Jacobs School of music where she studied with David Dzubay.

【參賽作品】歸途 Way Back Home

    《歸途》(Way Back Home)之靈感源於2021年中的太魯閣火車慘案，此事件發生在某個連假的開頭幾天，太魯閣號上大多都是返鄉探親的民眾，而這條「回家的路」卻因為此意外而變成了許多人的死亡之路。作曲家引用經典民謠《望春風》之旋律開頭並予以變形，在第二小節由大提琴第一次呈現，之後同樣的動機則以增減值於不同基音和脈搏上之發展貫穿全曲。曲中充斥著不和諧音響與音區式節奏等等手法以表現罹難者與其家屬們所經歷身心上的傷痛、煎熬與恐懼。另外，作曲家也於不同音色的表現層次上詮釋事發前列車長勇敢按下的數聲鳴笛。

   “Way Back Home” was inspired by the “2021 Hualien train derailment”. This incident occurred in the beginning of a break. People took the Taroko express train to visit relatives in their hometown. However, the way back home became the road of death for many people because of this accident. The composer used the melody of the classic ballad “Watching the Spring Breeze” at the beginning and made a little difference. In the second bar, it was presented by the cello for the first time. After that, the same motive was developed on different pitches and pulses throughout the whole piece. The song is full of discordant sounds and rhythms to express the physical and mental pain, suffering and fear experienced by the victims and their families. In addition, the composer used timbre to build various layers presenting how brave the conductor held the alarm several times and did his best to slow down the train in the few seconds before the train hit the wall of the cave. Although the time he realized the derailment would happen was too late to completely stop the train before hitting the wall, what he did really reduced the speed and made less people die.

2023