Kelip-Kelip: Numinous Crib Notes

A few years ago my wife and I took a trip to Malaysia. It was a 14-hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong, a wonderful layover in Hong Kong where we spent some time in town and then another 4 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur. We only spent our first and last day in KL, with the remainder of our time going around to different states on the peninsula. It was a wonderful time with many lovely adventures including tropical islands and beaches, tea plantations, wild monkeys, exotic culture, food, and people. When we came back to the USA, those adventures proved fruitful inspiration, for it spawned two compositions.

The first was a piece called Rihla written for our Pulse project, Sihr Hilal. The second composition was Kelip-Kelip. Kelip-kelip is a Bahasa Malay word meaning "twinkle" and is used to describe fireflies. One of the Malaysian states we visited was Kuala Selangor and the village of Kuantan, where we took a late night ride on the Selangor River in a small boat called a sampan. Along the banks of the river were millions of fireflies lighting the "quiet darkness." However these were not the lightning bugs I grew up with, but rather fireflies that twinkle not in a greenish-yellow light but rather in a blue-ish LCD-like soft glow. And what was more amazing was that these fireflies did not flicker with a lazy stochasticity but rather in a beautiful synchronicity. When we came around a river bend in the pitch blackness and silence of the night to see the trees lit up and flashing together like Christmas trees  lights was a moving and magical experience.

Kelip-Kelip was written for a Numinous performance at Roulette's Children's Concert back in 2007 and I had the kids simulate the flashing of the kelip-kelip. Here is a video of the performance:

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Numinous
May 24, 2010
9pm
Tea Lounge
837 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215-1308
(718) 789-2762
Donations (please be generous!) 

featuring: 
Ben Kono, Dan Willis, Ed Xiques (woodwinds); Stephanie Richards (trumpet); Ernest Stuart (trombone); Tom Beckham (vibraphone); Andrew Green (guitar); Megan Levin (harp); Jared Soldiviero (percussion); Ana Milosavljevic, Scott Tixier (violins); Will Martina, Lauren Riley-Rigby (cellos); Shawn Conley (bass)

Be prepared, check back later for more...

(Photo credit: Kelip-Kelip from visit-to-kl.com)

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 10:29 PM