Throughout history, music has overcome culture and borders to bring people together through a universal language. Shuying Li’s WORLD MAP—a collection of five mini-concertos for...

Throughout history, music has overcome culture and borders to bring people together through a universal language. Shuying Li’s WORLD MAP—a collection of five mini-concertos for quintet—takes listeners on a journey around the world, opening their ears to music’s evolution as an international unifier. Each piece of WORLD MAP focuses on specific cultural events that are representative of different regions of the world. Over the course of the album, Li explores history through the lens of music and showcases her ability to interpret genres and idioms from the globe over. Matilda’s Dream brings listeners to Australia with a thematic interpretation of the classic bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda.” The European leg of the journey is represented by The Dryad, a nostalgic piece inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name. American Variations takes things stateside with a set of variations based on quintessential American genres, including jazz, ragtime, klezmer, and pop-rock. Korean culture and traditional music are the focus of The Peace House, which draws its name from the inter-Korean Peace House. Canton Snowstorm gives the album a touch of surrealism with a pianistic depiction of a wintry weather in subtropical Canton. The Four Corners Ensemble performs on WORLD MAP, with each member serving as a featured soloist on pieces Li wrote to represent their cultural backgrounds.