Tonia Ko - Blue Skin of the Sea

Blue Skin of the Sea (2014) by Tonia Ko
0:00 I.
5:00 II. “I said nothing, stunned by her closeness.”
14:22 III.
16:00 IV.
18:55 V. “A great peace rose from the depths.”
H2O: Hoi Tong Keung DMA Recital I
Walter Hall, University of Toronto | June 2, 2022
Audio recording and mixing: Fish Yu
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The title Blue Skin of the Sea is taken from a book by Graham Salisbury, which is set in Hawaii, and of course, the Pacific Ocean. I feel deeply connected with the composer Tonia Ko and the piece as she was also born in Hong Kong, which lies on the western part of the Pacific Ocean. She was then raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, the heart of the Ocean. Ko’s compositional style revolves around texture, physical movement, and the relationship between melody and memory. While Blue Skin of the Sea (2014) is a marimba solo, a standard instrumentation for solo percussion, Ko succeeds in creating timbral breakthroughs by utilizing non-marimba mallets and extended techniques. Percussion playing is always connected to physical movement; Ko elevates this to the next level by instructing the performer to play with their hands. With regard to melody and memory, she included a ditty that she learned in elementary school in the fourth movement of the work, which is a reminiscence of her childhood in Honolulu.

Ko describes the first movement as a fantasy-like exploration of the 5th partial above low C. She hopes to create the illusion of overtones by first striking the low C and having the E in the fifth partial fading in, as if it is emerging from the low C. She uses the interval major third extensively throughout the movement, as well as other pitches in the harmonic series.

The second movement, “I said nothing, stunned by her closeness,” is a meditation on the “skin” of the marimba. The marimbist plays the instrument in a sliding motion using a hard mallet. In a later section, the marimbist puts down their mallets and plays with their hands; this is a rare moment when a marimbist physically touches the instrument. The next movement acts as a bridge between the intimate and playful movements.

The fourth movement comprises three elements—the Hawaiian lullaby Pupu Hinuhinu, ragtime xylophone, and the ukulele tuning ditty. This movement features rapid passages of the harmonic series as a foreshadow to the last movement.

Titled “A great peace rose from the depths,” the last movement of the work returns to the idea of the fifth partial. However, instead of creating an illusion, Ko instructs the performer to strike on a certain spot on the marimba bar to create harmonics. As a conclusion to the recital, this movement also revisits some of the extended techniques which we have encountered throughout the night—pitch-bending and rattling/sizzling effects.