Zihua Tan
what came before me is going after me

Out: November 7th, 2025 on No Hay Discos (CD/DL)
genres: modern composition, chamber music

zihua tan — zihuatan.com
no hay banda — nohaybanda.ca
no hay discos — nohaydiscos.bandcamp.com

The debut of Montréal-based, Malayasian-born, award-winning composer Zihua Tan, what came before me is going after me is long overdue.

Tan has already been recognized as a leading voice in experimental composition with his work appearing at Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (DE), Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (DE), Voix nouvelles de Royaumont (FR), the Tongyeong International Music Festival, TIMF (KR), Akademie Schloss Solitude (DE), Inaudita Festival (IT), Neue Musik Nacht, HfMudK Frankfurt (DE), Neue Horizonte at Sinfonieorchester Basel (CH), Accès Arkea (CA), ACL Festival (JP), and Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival (MY). He has also worked with important ensembles such as Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble TIMF, Ensemble SurPlus, Studio musikFabrik, Ensemble L’Arsenale, Divertimento Ensemble, Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, Ensemble Horizonte, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble and been recorded for Mode Records.

The two works that this album contains represent a deeply fascinating compositional approach. Tan’s is guided philosophically by nondualism, the notion that the separation between ourselves and all that surrounds us is a false division but his embrace of this concept is not necessarily what one would expect. He translates these idea into the sonic realm building spectra between supposedly polar musical parameters (e.g. linear and nonlinear structures, acoustic and electronic sounds, harmonicity and noise) and using these gradations within his pieces. Though Tan is operating within contemporary chamber music paradigm listeners, without knowing his methodology, could easily mistake this work for studio-driven experimentalism to the work of an unusually focused improvising unit and this stylistic slipperiness is partly what gives it such potency. Tan has a singular musical vision that manages to be evocative while remaining anchored in abstraction.

As a result, what came before me is going after me is an engrossingly detailed and textural affair, featuring live instrumentation amplified through unconventional means, a tactic that permits him to zero in on subtle timbral shadings. Performed by members of Montréal’s recent Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize winners NO HAY BANDA, the disc begins with “remnants present” a solo percussion piece for Noam Bierstone (click for official video), before moving to the longer titular composition for voice, violin, cello, percussion and Ondes Martenot.

Zihua Tanwhat came before me is going after me

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Zihua Tan
what came before me is going after me