A Mid autumn s Daydream

A Mid-Autumn's Daydream is structured in arch form. The sections are articulated by the different timbres heard in the percussion quartet. Between the percussion sections, there lies a recurring ten-beat gong cycle in the gamelan. This cycle moves gradually from the lower to upper registers with successive transpositions of the melody. The kotekan, or interlocking passage, is then heard. The palindromic nature of this piece, in terms of musical form, is also reflected in the melody and kotekan parts.
The percussion quartet takes a dominant role at the beginning, but is gradually overtaken by the gamelan in the second half of the work. These contrasting episodes constantly interweave and collapse into each other. The binary narrative is partly inspired by Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
This alternating nature evokes the image of interchanges between reality and dream state, consciousness and unconsciousness. Yet, it remains unclear whether the percussion ensemble or the gamelan represents "reality" or the "dream," reminding us of the butterfly dream of Zhuangzi, where one is no longer able to distinguish between two different worlds.