A Gleam of Light

A Gleam of Light was written in the Fall of 2022 for baritone Man Wai Cheng. It attempts to evoke a felt sense of personal and bicultural displacement from Man Wai’s life in both Hong Kong and the States. The original poetry is set against a 1928 recording of street sounds from the city of London and interrupted by lines of poetry from the early 20th century Chinese poet, Xu Zhimo - (Zhimo studied in the States and the UK from 1918-22). The combined poetry is outlined below. The recording provided here is from the premiere - (Man Wai Cheng - Baritone / Katherine Miller - Piano).