Between Dreams
I first met Mindy at Bennetts Lane, a legendary jazz club in Melbourne. She was a recent arrival from China via the UK, and it was clear from the minute we met that she was unique: a guzheng player interested in contemporary jazz, as well as just about every other genre of new music. In the intervening years, we have made a lot of beautiful music together, our two instruments, each so emblematic of their home cultures, combining in a mysterious meeting of wood, metal and vibrating air. The traditions informing guzheng practice are many centuries old yet our languages, each in its way specific, fold together effortlessly into a series of spontaneous improvisations. ‘Between Dreams’ was recorded in January 2025 at the Alexander Theatre, Monash University, the piano a divine Steinway D that I had the good fortune to select for the theatre for its reopening in 2018. While the music is largely improvised, the single, ‘A Fallen Leaf’, derives from a three-movement piece I wrote in 2024 for Mindy and ensemble titled ‘The Rhythms of Autumn Leaves’.
– Paul Grabowsky
Falling leaves are an ordinary thing,
But because someone is there to see them fall, They take on a deeper meaning.
In the intertwined melodies of guzheng and piano, This piece of music carries intense emotion –
Like memories, like unspoken thoughts, like sorrow, Like the story quietly resting in everyone’s heart.
– Mindy Meng Wang, on the single ‘A Fallen Leaf’