Voices Between Heaven and Silence: Zhenyan Li’s Bach UK Competition Award-Winning Composition “Orisons”
- WOMCO
- Oct 12
- 5 min read
Composer Zhenyan Li from London, United Kingdom has received the First Prize and the Excellent Creativity Special Award at the Bach International Music Competition UK 2025, Season 3 for her composition Orisons. The competition ran from 26 May to 26 August 2025, with results announced in September 2025.
Could you please introduce your award-winning composition Orisons for countertenor and ensemble? When and under what circumstances was it composed? Could you share the inspiration behind the composition and the message you hope to convey through it?
Zhenyan Li:
"Orisons was commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival in 2023 and premiered at the Beijing Poly Theatre that September. The piece is a response to Mahler’s Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life), the song that appears both in his Symphony No. 4 and in the Des Knaben Wunderhorn cycle. Mahler’s song offers a child’s vision of paradise — abundant with animals, fruits, and herbs, an innocent and fantastical heaven.
In Orisons (an archaic English word for “prayers”), a child speaks to us, delighting in the rich language of bird names — words their father once taught them. Yet this language begins to slip away: the words grow harder to recall, the names seem meaningless, and the creatures themselves become rarer or extinct. What begins as linguistic richness thins into single nouns desperately clutched at, and then into near silence. This loss mirrors the silencing of our natural world — the diminishing of birdsong, the emptying of wild spaces, the fading of biodiversity.
Gradually, the listener realises that this child is no longer alive. Perhaps they are one of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder children, or perhaps a child of our own time. The question lingers: are they speaking to us from heaven — or is their absence meant to make us question if we ourselves are the ones already living in a heaven emptied of its creatures?
Through the countertenor voice — fragile yet luminous — I sought to develop this tension between innocence and loss, presence and disappearance. The idea for this work grew out of conversations with Shuang Zou, Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival, whose vision was to commission a piece that would explore childhood and darkness in dialogue with Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Her invitation shaped the way I approached Orisons, guiding it toward both intimacy and unease."
What was your creative process like while composing Orisons? How did you approach the structure and dynamics of the piece?
Zhenyan Li:
"The creative process began with the text and its imagery — the richness of bird names gradually dissolving into silence. I imagined the structure of Orisons as a series of breath cycles: at first, each “inhalation” is full of life, language, and song, while each “exhalation” releases fragments, thinning into emptiness. This rhythm of expansion and contraction became a way to embody both the child’s voice and the silencing of the natural world.
Dynamics follow this same trajectory — swelling with intensity before retreating into fragility. The countertenor often hovers at the edge of audibility, so that even the act of holding onto a single word feels precarious, like clinging to a prayer. My aim was to mirror the journey from innocence to loss, from heaven imagined in childhood to the silence that follows when paradise fades."
How did you collaborate with the musicians who performed your award-winning work Orisons at Beijing Poly Theatre, and were there any memorable moments during the recording of the performance?
Zhenyan Li:
"Collaboration was central to bringing Orisons to life. The libretto, written by Emma Harding, brought a deeply engaging approach to storytelling, combining clarity with layers of ambiguity that invite the listener to lean in and reflect. I was fortunate to work with countertenor Andy Shen Liu, whose incredible singing and acting gave the child’s voice both fragility and intensity. He moved seamlessly between vulnerability and radiance, embodying the tension at the heart of the piece. In rehearsals, Andy and the ensemble explored how to shape every gesture so that the words could carry their full weight, even when pared back to near silence. I remember one moment when Andy sang a fragment with such rawness that the room fell completely still — no one dared to breathe. It was a powerful reminder of how fragile, and how immediate, the act of music-making can be."
Could you talk to us about yourself, your journey in music, and your future goals? Could you also share your perspective on what defines a great composer in today’s digital age, and what you consider to be the most significant artistic or professional challenges facing composers today and in the coming years?
Zhenyan Li:
"I am a composer and Chinese flute player based in London. My work is rooted in traditional East Asian theatre which tells stories through suggestion, exaggeration, and abstraction. These ideas have deeply shaped my compositional voice.
My future goals are to contribute to society by addressing social issues through storytelling in music, to continue exploring how narrative can be expressed in purely instrumental writing, and to create works that bring together performers and audiences from different cultural backgrounds.
In today’s digital age, I believe a great composer is someone who can remain true to their artistic identity and their own background, while also engaging with new mediums and technologies. The accessibility of music online is both a gift and a challenge — it allows us to reach audiences worldwide, but it also means that attention spans are shorter and the 'noise' is greater. One of the biggest challenges composers face is sustaining meaningful artistic connections in this fast-moving environment, while also navigating practical issues like funding and career stability."
Would you like to share your experience participating in our competition and anyone you'd like to thank?
Zhenyan Li:
"Participating in this competition has been an inspiring experience. It offered me the opportunity not only to share Orisons with a wider audience, but also to feel part of a vibrant community of composers and musicians who are each finding their own unique ways of pushing boundaries.
I would like to thank Shuang Zou, Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival, for her vision in championing new voices and supporting this commission. I am equally grateful to Emma Harding for her compelling libretto and to Andy Shen Liu for his outstanding artistry in performance. My sincere thanks also go to my mentors, Philip Cashian and David Sawer, and to conductor John Warner, for their generous guidance. Finally, I am deeply appreciative of the players and my family, whose constant encouragement has sustained me throughout this journey."
