Rejuvenation: A Taoist Journey is the result of Ho's effort to express the essence of Taoism in musical form. A narrator recites text from Laozi's centuries-old The Tao Te Ching along with the poem When Sky Rooster Crows by Chinese-Canadian writer Lien Chao, and performs and mix of notated and improvisatory solo material on the pipa (Chinese lute). In evoking the mysticism of the text, Ho conjures up imaginative and elemental orchestral colours and textures. Quivering high string glissandi, breath tones and even baoding balls inhabit the work's more spacious passages, while elsewhere numerous individual parts intermingle, forming dense tapestries of notes.
Vincent Ho is a Canadian who is widely recognised as one of the most exciting composers of his generation. He has made waves in the music world of North America despite being fairly early in his compositional career, receiving numerous prizes, accolades, and prominent commissions in a relatively short space of time. Ho’s music is rich and energetic - a unique integration of influences ranging from the visual arts, electroacoustic and natural soundscapes, traditional classical music forms, and the physical properties of the instruments and ensembles for which he writes. His music is sensual, sonorous and richly textured, and Ho gives considerable attention to the audience’s experience of his intricate sound-worlds.
