On 17 June 2026, Manchester Museum's Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery presented Four Seasons — Chinese Landscape, Poetry and Sound, a multimedia chamber music project conceived and led by composer Yingfei Yang. Developed in connection with the museum's public engagement programme accompanying its temporary exhibition Human Nature, the performance brought together contemporary chamber music, moving image, and classical Chinese poetry in an hour-long exploration of seasonal landscapes and states of mind.
Structured around Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, the project united the work of three composers, three media artists, and six string musicians. Rather than treating Tang poetry as a historical artifact, Four Seasons approached each poem as a point of departure for new artistic responses in sound and image.
The evening opened with HUNG, a collaboration between composer Ruitao You and media artist Lei Huang, inspired by Wang Wei's Birdsong Valley. Sparse musical gestures and slowly shifting visuals created an atmosphere of suspension and stillness, inviting the audience into a space where the passage of time seemed almost imperceptible.
The Summer chapter featured Yijia Zhang's Cruel Summer, inspired by Wang Wei's Ku Re Xing (Song of Bitter Heat), with a moving image by Xizhe Li. The work captured both the physical intensity of oppressive summer heat and its psychological impact. Through glissandi, harmonics, pizzicato, and other extended string techniques, Zhang built a sound world of constant tension and instability. Moments of agitation gradually gave way to passages of release, mirroring the emotional trajectory suggested by the poem itself. Drawing on both Chinese poetic imagery and contemporary approaches to timbre and texture, the piece transformed an ancient literary source into a distinctly contemporary musical experience.
The performance by cellist Chengyu Yin was particularly notable. Navigating the work's dense technical demands with assurance and precision, he moved seamlessly between moments of raw sonic intensity and passages of lyrical subtlety, allowing the cello to emerge as a central expressive force within the musical narrative.
Media artist Xizhe Li created the visual environments for both the Summer and Autumn chapters. Working with archival Chinese film footage, contemporary landscape imagery, and elements of calligraphic practice, she developed a visual language that functioned as an active counterpart to the music. In Cruel Summer, saturated colours and fragmented editing heightened the work's sense of heat and unease. For Autumn, however, the same materials were transformed into something quieter and more spacious, allowing visual rhythm and silence to play a greater role in shaping the audience's experience.
The Autumn chapter, Mountain Dwelling in Autumn Evening, was composed by Yingfei Yang and inspired by Wang Wei's poem of the same title. Scored as a dialogue between violin and cello, the work unfolded through subtle changes in timbre, gesture, and texture. Rather than depicting landscape directly, it suggested a space where external scenery and inner reflection gradually merged.
Yang's second contribution, River Snow, brought the programme to a close, with a moving image by Meixi Pan. Inspired by Liu Zongyuan's celebrated poem, the work evoked an expansive winter landscape through restrained musical materials and a striking sense of sonic space. Fragments of folk-like melody surfaced briefly before dissolving into silence, leaving an impression of distance, solitude, and vastness.
Across the four chapters, the project revealed how poetry written more than 1,300 years ago can continue to speak to contemporary audiences. Rather than illustrating Tang poetry literally, the artists responded to its emotional and philosophical landscapes through sound and image, allowing familiar themes of solitude, change, resilience, and humanity's place within the natural world to emerge in new forms.
The concert was performed to a full house. With many audience members remaining after the concert to speak with the artists and share their responses. Reflecting on the project, Yingfei Yang noted that Manchester's cultural diversity creates valuable opportunities for dialogue between different artistic traditions.
"The relationship between humanity and nature in Chinese poetry more than 1,300 years ago still feels deeply relevant today," Yang said. "Through music and moving image, we hope these works can offer audiences a new way of encountering that tradition, while opening space for reflection on our own relationship with the world around us."
As an ongoing interdisciplinary initiative, Four Seasons is expected to continue developing through future performances, exhibitions, and international collaborations, extending the conversation between Chinese literary heritage and contemporary artistic practice.
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