When the Bell Rang
Inspired by Ziyi Tao's "收铁人" (Ironware Collector) for solo guitar, When the Bell Rang recounts the story of a young man who returns to his childhood home, only to find it abandoned.
Music: “收铁人” (Ironware Collector)* by Ziyi Tao
Director: Xiwen Miao
Director of Photography: Moss Rios Rehm
Starring: Leon Qin, Romo Lee, John Squires, Mingjie Li, Chang Liu, and Tran Nguyen
Musician: Ziyi Tao, guitar
Assistant Director: Baylee Brown
Production Designer: Kayley Saade
Gaffer: Claire Halloran
Art Production Assistant: Ella Murray
Editor: Lu Fine
Composer’s Notes: This piece was written with the intention in mind to recreate one particular childhood experience, as well as everything connected to it: I used to live in Beijing, and when I was younger time seems slower, especially in the summer afternoons: we lived on the fifth floor of an apartment, so looking out from the window I can always see quite far out -- I would see a lot of trees in my neighborhood, the supermarket buildings far away, as well as the people down below going about their days, small as ants. Beijing has a diverse population of people from quite drastic economic classes: from the rich who received wealth because their parents owned a house in the area a long time ago, to the people from outside (mainly the south) who came to seek a better life and earn money to send back home, yet will never truly be recognized as "Beijingers". These people are referred to in Chinese as “低端人口”, which literally means "Lower End Population". They usually have occupations that would be considered "undesirable", such as cleaning the streets, working in restaurants, clearing out the trash, working as delivery workers, etc.. One particular group would be the "Ironware Collectors", this is also the literal translation of the title of the piece; they would navigate around the neighborhoods with their tricycles, and smash ironwares against each other to make this very particular, metallic sound, so that the residents upstairs will be able to hear them, in case their service would be needed.
I remember in the past I would literally stop doing whatever I was doing whenever I hear that sound, especially when I am alone at home --- I would pause and listen to the resonant beautiful sound of these iron smashing against each other, fading in and out of the wind sound which naturally occurs in the summer afternoons; my mind would go blank, I would just be completely captivated by this soundscape.
Beginning 2014, President Xi decided to implement policies and incentives to gradually drive out these so called "Lower End People" in an attempt to increase the number of the "more educated" in the capital city --- so on top of the closing of many grocery stores, the majority of these Iron Collectors are also forced out, their businesses shut down. After reading a report about this on New York Times, and seeing some of the violent approaches the government took to force out those who did not willingly leave, I thought about the entire thing --- it is too bad that this integral part of my childhood and what I associate my home with was just driven out like that; the treatment of these people is beyond agonizing: the city must have been such a special place for them as it has been for so many, yet this space which they offered so much to, that also provided them so much, would suddenly be stripped away. This was a scary thought --- it made me think about the spaces, the people we cherish, and the places we call "Home", and what would happen if something similar happened to us.
This explains the piece being essentially a collection of fragmented music, intended to represent the hope, and the past; air sounds, representing the wind; and resonant gong like sounds, which sound extremely similar to, and is meant to represent the ironwares smashing against each other --- the Iron Collector is driven out, taking along with them nothing besides a few ironwares, their hope which we as a society has failed them, and the wind that blows both north and southward.
About the Composer: Ziyi Tao (2002), not yet a composer, and hopes to become more than a composer. Fascinated by languages and the process of making sense of things, he is currently working on elementary French and hopes to learn Turkish, if not in this life, definitely the next. Ziyi has also been self-learning German for the past two years, now working on the 39th paragraph of the Preface to Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit, which he hopes to finish within the next five years. Ziyi is under the mentorship of Robert Beaser at Juilliard, and has also been inspired by many other composers, including Jon Deak, Molly Herron, Shedrick Mitchell, Max Grafe, and Reiko Füting. Ziyi has been fortunate to have his works performed by a number of prominent artists and ensembles, including pianist Peter Dugan, the Julius Quartet, the Hypercube Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
*“收铁人” was the 3rd prize winner of Art Beyond the Ink’s 2021 EXPO: New Works Competition.