Liquid Metal takes its name from the city of Gimhae, where the group that commissioned the piece, the Gimhae Municipal Gayageum Orchestra, is based. The Chinese characters for Gimhae (金海) are translated as “gold(en) sea”. Taking them individually and applying a broader, more general meaning, I interpreted them as metal and liquid, hence the concept for the piece.

The music imagines a substance that is paradoxically both hard and flowing, metallic and sometimes hard-edged sounds that are constantly in flux, changing shape, shifting, oozing. Yet this strange liquid metal seems to be cool rather than hot, with silvery, shimmering sounds and light reflecting from its surface. Perhaps such a thing can exist only in music and art, not in the actual world…

Liquid Metal is dedicated to the Gimhae Municipal Gayageum Orchestra and its director, Jiyoung Yi.