The making of Memories of 2055

Saxophonist Marvin Leung, soprano Eunice Suen and composer Tze Toh reflect on the music creation process

"Tze has a great album concept in Memories of 2055, and his compositions provided plenty of scope for imagination and creative risk taking. I thoroughly enjoyed the recording process and contributing to this meaningful project, especially in this day and age where music has become overly commodified and disposable," saxophonist and music educator Marvin Leung says.

"I had so many wonderful, thought-provoking discussions with Marvin while we were working on the album. As improvisers, we were both fascinated by the idea of getting into the flow, and how by merely being more "conscious" of the choices we make, the resulting music loses a certain natural, organic state. 

Where intuition can lead us is often halted, disrupted by the logical discipline of adhering to, and creating a certain structure. But strangely enough, by simply letting go, and connecting with the emotions, imagery, story involved (i.e. the big picture), we seem to create something that's coherent (but possibly chaotic) anyway," composer/pianist Tze Toh reflects.

"We were in the studio, preparing to record the piece Machine Sunrise, and this discussion went on quite a bit and I ended up suggesting a reverse process, where we record the solo / improvisation before the main theme. This is so that the ideas, nuances generated during the solo can be in turn used to interpret the main theme. Kinda like in movies where they start with "12 hours earlier"..."