New York-based, Taiwanese composer and vibraphonist Yuhan Su has been on a winding, circuitous journey. From early, classical studies in Taiwan to diving headfirst into the New York jazz scene, and more recently a six-month residency in Paris, all of these paths have led to her latest album, Liberated Gesture. It’s a record that caught me by surprise. Her technique and artistry are unquestionable, but the emotional core of the music runs deep and lands hard. I love it.
Liberated Gesture is out now on Sunnyside Records. Yuhan Su can be found on her website HERE.
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Going back, what are some of your earliest memories or experiences related to music or sound? What are some of the real formative things from when you were young that have stuck with you?
My mom is a music teacher in elementary school. So I was naturally exposed to a musical environment at home. There were always piano students of hers who came to the house and my older sister was studying piano and violin at the time too. So it’s not surprising that I picked up piano around 6 years old.
I attended the special music-focused class in the 3rd grade where we had to choose major and minor instruments, and mine was piano and cello. Since then, I have had very structural courses for harmony, ear training, theory, private lessons, etc. The formative things back then are probably the experiences of being involved with orchestra, brass band (I was playing the euphonium), choir, and ensembles constantly at that young age. I enjoyed being a part of the huge sound of color and that goosebumps feeling stuck with me.
Did you always want to be a musician or play music?
So I basically started to play music without even thinking about it. Until high school time, I did not give serious consideration to whether I should keep pursuing it professionally because I grew my passion for writing and literature and wanted to be a novelist. Majoring in music academically in Taiwan also means you sacrifice some of the general classes/activities like joining a club to be a magazine editor which I really would love to do. But eventually, I still couldn’t give up on music since I had already learned how to express myself the best with it.
What initially drew you to the vibraphone? Was it your first instrument?
I switched my minor instrument from cello to percussion in my fifth grade. There is a funny story about this. I quit playing cello basically because people always laugh at me saying, “Hey little girl! Your cello is so much bigger than you!” since I was quite short then. So I thought, “I’m gonna switch to playing percussion. I see my classmates only bring sticks and mallets to school and that seems so easy.” Now every time I move a 137 lbs vibraphone around the city to perform, I think back to this ‘smart’ decision.
Since then, I’ve learned to play multiple percussion instruments and marimba in classical and new music settings. Roughly, around my 3rd year in college, I got to know jazz and realized there were other ways to play the instrument. Vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Chick Corea were touring in Taiwan back then as a duo. I was at the concert and completely blown away by the freedom and fluency of improvisation and conservation they had in music. I made up my mind to dedicate myself to this. Back then, the education of jazz was not as thorough in Taiwan. So after I finished my master’s degree in classical percussion in Taiwan, I finally came to the US to study jazz vibraphone at Berklee College of Music.
Let’s get into your new album Liberated Gesture. It is described as having a common theme of finding freedom. Can you elaborate on what this theme means to you and how it influenced the composition and overall direction of the album?
I think we all experience some kinds of constraints in life, culture, and music. For example, I studied classical music in my entire early life. Being a solid classical musician means that you have to accurately interpret the composer’s will and be as flawless as you can in technique. And speaking of being a jazz musician, there are tons of arguments about what is real jazz or if jazz still exists. Culturally, being a woman who grew up in Taiwan, people have their stereotypes, thinking of certain ways I should act, dress, and behave. I think we all individually have these kinds of different expectations from society, but our minds are free and so are the arts. It’s a way we find the freedom to break all these rules and be honest with what’s happened and what our mind goes to now. I want to make this album about this to present a boundary-less set of music with lots of expressions.
The record features a new band of accomplished musicians. How did the collaboration with altoist Caroline Davis, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Marty Kenney, and drummer Dan Weiss contribute to the creative process and the realization of your vision for the album?
They’re all my favorites and I’ve been to many of their shows over the years. Matt Mitchell and Dan Weiss are especially known for their unique approach and masterful skills on their instruments and the avant-garde music scene. I first invited two of them to play this repertoire and I was literally stunned while I was playing the gig. They play this music in such a flexible, thematic, and musical way, and at the same time, it’s so precise. I love this natural flow even in some challenging compositions. So I immediately decided to invite them to play on this record. And for Caroline and Marty, I’m always inspired by their versatile musicality in various styles. I think that definitely adds some edge to this record.
The title piece of the album, Liberated Gesture, is a suite inspired by Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hartung. How did Hartung’s work influence your composition, and what aspects of his art did you aim to convey through your music?
Liberated Gesture is actually the name of the Hans Hartung exhibition I visited in Paris. It showcased his over 70 years long career work which keeps transforming to different styles according to his life situations. His paintings are intuitive, dramatic, and bold with lines and colors. I was deeply touched by the very direct power of his artistry. And I think that message was important for me at that time when I was all alone in the residency in Paris for 6 months: To trust the process and my intuition and to follow through.
More generally, there are pieces inspired and influenced by other creative realms – Hassan Hajjaj’s portraits, Joan Didion’s writing, and there’s even Caroline Davis’s poem recitation. Can you talk a little about about incorporating these other art practices and what draws you to creating sound worlds that embrace them? What are some of the biggest challenges with that?
I mentioned that my youth dream of becoming a novelist. So I think there is something I always love about creating music is to help me to document and describe the atmosphere and scene of ‘now’. The music creates a room of imaginations. For example, the humor and oddity inside of Hassan Hajjaj’s works, the sorrows and honesty in Joan Didion’s writing, and the poem I wrote about being the shiny leaf. They’re something I would like to remember.
The challenge of this is that I’m not writing words but music. Music is much more abstract, which is also the most fun part. On the other hand, I want them to be satisfying musically too.
Your six-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris played a role in the creation of half of the album’s repertoire. How did the unique atmosphere of Paris impact your creative process, and what elements of the city are reflected in the music?
I realized everything moves a bit slower there. When I went to the shows there, I also discovered that audiences appreciate and receive the arts at a slightly different speed, with more patience I think. After living in New York for 8 years by then, that was my chance to breathe deeper and relax a little. I was in the pure environment of the art residency. It’s almost surreal to spend my full energy and time only focusing on creativity for this long period. As far as I know, most NY musicians work multiple jobs while maintaining their music career. So I was glad to have a different perspective to reflect on my music and myself again.
The album incorporates polyrhythmic complexity and dissonance, which I find so interesting and engaging. How do these elements contribute to the overall sonic landscape of the album, and what challenges or goals did you have in mind when working with complex meters and atonal harmony?
I was drawn to these dissonant sounds and angular poses mainly because of my background of studying lots of 20th-century modern repertoire in percussion I think. Composers like Iannis Xenakis, Elliot Carter, and Minoru Miki’s music, they’re just part of my brain. Later on, when I started to dig into jazz compositions, I found lots of connections in between and that excites me. For example, I love Steve Lehman, Anna Webber, and Kris Davis’s music. I think they all have certain relations tied to the new music field.
The challenge and my goal is to develop new vocabulary to improvise freely over these particular mixed meters and atonal harmonies. It’s like I’ve absorbed lots of different methods to improvise from tradition to new, and that is the statement I’m making now.
The liner notes mention your goal of finding liberation from within given limitations. Can you elaborate on how you approach musical limitations and how they fuel your creative process?
Most things in life are not square, like an interesting dance stumbling around. I think I want to create a world of rhythm like that. And just like the cover of this record, I feel the melodies and harmony should be like the piece of silk that is either flying or dropping from the sky.
What surprised you the most about making Liberated Gesture?
It took much longer than I expected to actually put it out. Now I’m in a huge relief. It was produced during the pandemic time, so there are lots of difficulties related to that. Just by thinking about the time we thought the live music might die down, and now everything is moving even faster than before. It’s interesting to reflect on all this while looking back at this music.
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