Composer Alive: Eastern Expressions Film Screening July 20, 2007

Composer Alive: Eastern Expressions is a 55 minute documentary film about Accessible Contemporary Music's innovative web-based collaboration with Beijing Composer Xiaogang Ye.

As part of Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad Chicago project ACM set out to work with a Chinese composer in the summer of 2006. They searched the internet tirelessly until they found Xiaogang Ye and he agreed to the project and to write a new piece and travel to Chicago for the final performance.

The piece was emailed to ACM and recorded in four installments and Xiaogang came to Chicago in September of 2006 for the World Premiere of the piece.

The film covers this exciting collaboration from beginning to final concert and also features interviews with leaders in the Classical music field like Henry Fogel.

The film is a poignant meditation on the difference in perception between East and West, some of the problems facing the Classical music tradition in the West and, perhaps most of all, it's the story of a young ensemble taking on a wildly ambitious project and succeeding beyond their expectations.

Official Website: http://acmusic.org