Patrick Yim's BAMBOO GROVE Album Out Now on PENTATONE
The album's title track was commissioned for Yim and premiered at Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
Violinist and violist Patrick Yim has released his new album Bamboo Grove on PENTATONE, featuring world premiere recordings created in close collaboration with composers Chen Yi and Zhou Long, two composers working at the intersection of Chinese and Western musical traditions.
Recorded during a week-long residency at the University of Notre Dame in April 2024, Bamboo Grove brings together four works that reimagine the expressive possibilities of Western string instruments through the sonic worlds of Chinese musical culture. The project is enriched by Yim's close collaboration with the composers and by their personal histories which span the Cultural Revolution, formative studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and artistic refinement in New York at Columbia University with mentors Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. Across the album, Yim performs on both violin and viola in works that evoke the guqin, erhu, pipa, xiao, lusheng, ancient bell ensembles, Peking opera percussion, and regional folk traditions, creating a sound world at once ancient and contemporary.
'I have long admired the work and personal histories of Chen Yi and Zhou Long, and it has been a profound privilege to collaborate with them on this recording and to come to know them personally,' said Patrick Yim. 'Their stories of collaborations with artists such as Yehudi Menuhin and Yo-Yo Ma offered a living connection to a remarkable musical lineage. From a performer's perspective, these works are both idiomatic and imaginative, pushing the limits of Western instruments through a deep familiarity with their traditions and a rich creative vision. It is an honor to bring this music to life and share it with a wider audience.'
The album opens with Zhou Long's Bamboo Grove for unaccompanied violin, a 2024 work commissioned for Yim by the University of Notre Dame and premiered at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. It was inspired by Ruan Xian, one of the famed Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a performer and composer who embodied a spirit of artistic freedom. He is the only member of the Seven Sages to have had an instrument named after him: the ruan, a Chinese lute. Zhou's work unfolds in two contrasting sections, evoking both the contemplative image of a sage among bamboo and the lively energy of Henan folk music. Throughout, the violin is transformed through extensive pizzicato, quick glissandi, percussive articulations, and coloristic effects that suggest the zheng, guqin, ruan, and erhu.
Chen Yi's Xian Shi, heard here in its trio version for viola, percussion, and piano, is rooted in folk ensemble music from Chaozhou in Guangdong, her mother's hometown. The work, later expanded into a full orchestral version, was Chen's earliest orchestral composition and the first viola concerto by a Chinese composer. Its sound world reimagines the viola as a vehicle for Chinese instrumental sonorities, including the nasal, singing tone of the yehu and the rolling plucked textures of the pipa and ruan. The cadenza features a striking four-finger rapid pizzicato roll, an unprecedented technique in the viola repertoire.
Zhou Long's Tales from the Nine Bells for clarinet, violin, viola, and piano draws on a millennia-old Chinese legend recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, in which 'Nine Bells ring with Knowledge of the Frost.' The work conjures an otherworldly landscape through stopped-string piano sonorities, shimmering glissandi, glassy string harmonics, guqin-like pizzicato, erhu-inspired violin writing, and rhythmic figures derived from Peking opera percussion.
The album closes with Chen Yi's Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds, adapted from her earlier work Sound of the Five for cello and string quartet. Its four movements evoke the sounds and performance practices of traditional Chinese instruments: the village energy of the lusheng, the resonance of ancient set bells, the lyrical voice of the hsiao and ch'in, and the brilliant drive of a Chinese percussion ensemble.
Tracklist
All works are world premiere recordings
1. Zhou Long – Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin (2024) [11:09] — Patrick Yim, violin
2. Chen Yi – Xian Shi for Viola, Percussion, and Piano (1982) [15:15] — Patrick Yim, viola; Paul Vaillancourt, percussion; Shuai Wang, piano
3. Zhou Long – Tales from the Nine Bells for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Piano (2013) [13:50] — Patrick Yim, violin; Kirsten Docter, viola; John Diodati, clarinet; Shuai Wang, piano
Chen Yi – Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds (2012)
4. I. Lusheng Ensemble [4:38]
5. II. Echoes of the Set Bells [3:53]
6. III. Romance of Hsiao and Ch'in [3:40]
7. IV. Flower Drums in Dance [6:32]
Patrick Yim, solo viola; Catherine Ramirez, flute; Jennet Ingle, oboe; John Diodati, clarinet; Anna Marsh, bassoon; Matthew Oliphant, horn; Charles Roberts, trumpet; Riley Leitch, trombone; Paul Vaillancourt, percussion; Paul Hostetter, conductor
Total Playing Time: 59:03
Recording Credits
Executive Producer: Patrick Yim
Recording Producer, Mixing Engineer, and Immersive Producer: Jesse Lewis
Co-Producers: Patrick Yim, Chen Yi, and Zhou Long
Recording Engineer: Dan Nichols
Editing Engineers: Shauna Barravecchio and Jesse Lewis
Mastering and Immersive Mixing & Mastering Engineer: Christopher Moretti
Denoise: Mark Alletag
Liner Notes: Patrick Yim
Cover Design: Marjolein Coenrady, PENTATONE
Booklet Coordination and Design: Karolina Szymanik, PENTATONE
The album was recorded at Leighton Concert Hall, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, between April 9 and 14, 2024.
About Patrick Yim
Honolulu-born violinist Patrick T.S. Yim has performed on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Harpa Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall, Severance Hall, Orchestra Hall, Teatro alla Scala, and the Musikverein.
Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony and has performed concerti by Bach, Brahms, Bruch, Chen Yi, Lalo, Mozart, and Vivaldi. He has performed chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Emerson, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, and Ying Quartets; musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic; and principal players from the Shanghai Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Recent highlights include a Carnegie Hall performance with members of the Emerson Quartet as part of the New Music for Strings Festival, a collaboration with pipa virtuoso Wu Man in Lou Harrison's Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, and the premieres of two newly commissioned works with Juilliard Quartet violinist Joel Smirnoff.
A committed advocate for contemporary music, Yim has commissioned 70 works, including a substantial body of work for violin with non-Western instruments, and performed new music internationally in concert halls, museums, galleries, universities, and festivals. He has collaborated closely with many renowned composers, including Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Ken Ueno, George Tsontakis, Bun-Ching Lam, and Juri Seo. In collaboration with the Hong Kong Museum of History, he curated a series of performances related to the Silk Road featuring premieres of newly commissioned works for solo violin. His discography includes Gobi Canticle (Orchid Classics, 2026), George Onslow String Quintets Vol. 5 (Naxos, 2026), One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin (New Focus Recordings, 2024), New Waves (Albany Records, 2023), Digital Mist: Works for Violin and Piano (Naxos, 2022), and Memory (Navona, 2020), as well as recordings for Ravello and Acis.
Yim performed in the violin section of The Cleveland Orchestra on tours throughout the United States and Europe and has served as concertmaster of the Hong Kong String Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Orchestra Hong Kong, and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival Orchestra. A Core Member (Violin) of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, he was Assistant Professor of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University for four years and has taught at Stony Brook University, the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Department, Interlochen Summer Arts Camp, and numerous festivals. He has also performed with Ensemble Dal Niente in Chicago and on tour internationally.
In 2024, Yim performed the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long's Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin. In 2026, he will give the premiere of Zhou's Three Tang Poems for solo violin, strings, harp, and percussion.
Yim graduated with honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied violin with William Preucil and David Updegraff and chamber music with Peter Salaff and the Cavani Quartet, and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where he studied violin with Philip Setzer, Jennifer Frautschi, and Hagai Shaham, and chamber music with the Emerson Quartet. He is Assistant Professor of Violin in the Department of Music at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Learn more at www.patrickyimviolin.com.
