• for 3 aerophones and amplified grand piano

• Duration: 9'
• In 2 movements: A Mirror of Lightening Sound/ A Mirror of Lightning Sound
• Composed in 2009
• Commissioned by the Centre For The Arts (National University of Singapore) for the Tan Ean Kiam Arts 2009 Awards Ceremony
• First performance: 31.10.09 Roberto Álvarez, Rajendra Vadivale, Chan Yong Xue and R Casteels University Cultural Centre Theatre (NUS)
• ISMN: 979-0-9016507-5-6
• Parts: available from the composer
• Downloadable scores for inspection:
  Mirror10withouttext.pdf

Mirror of Sound was commissioned by the Centre For The Arts specially for the Tan Ean Kiam 2009 Arts Awards ceremony. In this short piece, the composer invites three flautists to select three aerophones from different cultures. For the premiere, the performers chose a European C-flute and piccolo flute, two Karnātak venus as well as the Chinese Dadi and Xiaodi. The flautists project their sound into an instrument which may look like a western grand piano, but is actually treated like a large resonating yan qin. In the first movement entitled A Mirror of Lightening Sound, a peaceful melody unfolds thrice. For the second movement entitled A Mirror of Lightning Sound, players switch instruments to reach the highest register for vivacious and brief avalanches of bouncing sound.

Review
The most hautingly beautiful music was heard in Mirror of Sound, where flute players communed in front of a piano which had its metal strings struck and scraped. Their sonorities reflected across a piano’s sound board became almost identical. All men are brothers, Casteels opines.
Chang Tou Liang, Singapore