Canadian composer Zihua Tan’s singular aesthetic vision makes him a fitting ally to Montréal powerhouse ensemble-presenter NO HAY BANDA.
~courtesy Riparian Media
The concept of nonduality is foundational to Zihua Tan‘s creative outlook. Found within a wide assortment ofphilosophical and contemplative traditions, it’s essentially the assertion that the division between oneself and everything else is illusory; that everything around us in the world is just a different manifestation of a single energetic source.
A considerable amount of Malaysian-born Montréal-based composer’s output is guided by this notion and that includes the two contrasting works that comprise his remarkable debut recording, what came before me is going after me (release date November 7, 2025). Often this translates into establishing continua between supposedly opposing musical parameters or concepts and mapping places along them—linear/nonlinear structures, acoustic/electronic sound worlds, harmonicity/inharmonicity, blending/non-blending of timbres. “It may seem paradoxical to carve segments from what is essentially a fluid continuum,” Tan writes of his approach, “yet it is through naming the duality that one becomes aware of the non-dual.”
Tan’s music expresses a deep fascination with sound and gesture, but while it delves unfinchingly into sonic abstraction, it also doesn’t shy away from music’s capacity for sensuousness. His output is riddled with what one might label ‘extended techniques’, yet to frame the instrumental tactics he prescribes in this manner negates their underlying impetus. Tan conceives of any performance approach as part and parcel of a given instrument’s identity; there is no extension or hierarchy, just gradations within the broader spectrum of sonic possibility. One hears this in the elegant way in which he blends, and manoeuvers through different sonorities and this singular aesthetic vision makes him a fitting ally to Montréal powerhouse ensemble-presenter NO HAY BANDA—one of two recent winners of the Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize ’26—who have embraced his uniquely experimental compositional process.
Both of the works presented here were the product of working extensively with these performers and it shows. Tan has the interpreters work carefully with precarious, ultra-specifc sounds that are achieved through a combination of unconventional playing, preparations and unconventional amplifcation such as contact microphones, geophone, hydrophone and close-miking—a tactic that allows microscopic details to occupy the same dynamic space as much more forceful gestures. Each sound the listener encounters carries a strong tactile quality.
The score for the first work,remnants present (for solo percussion) includes a note that in many regards applies to both pieces. “Collaborative sessions with Noam have led me to explore a world of complex, delicate, and fascinatingly volatile sounds that seem to be latent in the instruments themselves, waiting to be discovered, to be articulated. What if these delicate sounds—these shadowy remnants that seem to trail behind more weighty sounds—do not emerge from the fading of something, and both—the light and the shadow—are present since the very beginning? If the remnants are unveiled at the foreground, what, then, slips to the background?”
This 16-minute work coaxes a stunning array of timbres from amplifed gongs, metal instruments and congas. Live, the performer’s use of magnetism as a means to produce sound, brings a subtle theatrical element into the fray, as the partially obscured performer “conjures the illusion that the gongs are animating themselves, speaking of their own accord.” Where its focus is decidedly unpitched percussive sonorities, the 34-minute titular work, what came before me is going after me applies similar tactics to a quintet featuring violin, cello, voice, percussion and Ondes Martenot. This produces a surreal landscape in which melodic and harmonic fgures surface and dissolve into dream-like textural fow. Both works demonstrate Tan’s formidable musical imagination and follow his nondualist convictions into fascinating and adventurous territory.
Award-winning composer Zihua Tanh has seen his works performed in Asia, Europe and North America, at crucial events such as 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, MudK Frankfurt (DE), Neue Horizonte at Sinfonieorchester Basel (CH), Accès Arkea (CA), Studio musikFabrik Project (MY, SG and TH), ACL Festival (JP), and Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival (MY).
He has also collaborated with the likes of Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble TIMF, Ensemble SurPlus, Studio musikFabrik, Ensemble L’Arsenale, Divertimento Ensemble, Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, Ensemble Horizonte, Ensemble BlauerReiter, Ensemble Wapiti, Ensemble Schallfeld, Ensemble Arkea, Ensemble Phorminx, Contempoartensemble, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble. Tan has won a number of awards, including the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (JP), the Goethe Award (KR), and the frst prize at Concours Accès Arkea (CA). His music has been released by Mode Records and featured by the Mauricio Kagel Composition Competition (AT), Radio Helsinki (AT), and Westdeutscher Rundfunk 3 (DE).
Thanks to an award from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), Tan collaborated with percussionist Karen Yu and Kenny Wong, a kinetic sculptor, on the interdisciplinary project, the breathing canvas, a performative installation that employs newly-designed instrument with electromechanical parts. It has been staged at various events including ‘Struck/ture’ at Eastern Bloc (CA), ‘Transplanted Roots – Percussion Research Symposium’ at Queensland Conservatorium (AU), and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. In 2018-19, he was the Styria Artist-in-Residence in Graz, where he realized a bipartite performative installation titled no names but thingless names. His other cross-disciplinary forays include working with butoh dancer Lee Swee Keong, and the dance studio of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Tan holds a Doctor of Music in Composition from McGill University, where he also worked as a lecturer. His education also encompassed private lessons with revered composers such as John Rea, Philippe Leroux, Chaya Czernowin, Johannes Schöllhorn, Vinko Globokar, Mark Andre, Brian Ferneyhough, Tristan Murail, Stefano Gervasoni, Rebecca Saunders and Francesco Filidei. Prior to taking up composition, he worked as a semiconductor design engineer. Over the years, Tan has worked within initiatives to organize contemporary music events in Malaysia and broader Southeast Asia, including co-founding the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers (SMCC).
Founded in 2016, NO HAY BANDA is a Montreal-based non-proft organization committed to the production, performance, and promotion of music rooted in exploratory and avant-garde practices. NO HAY BANDA organizes a genre-busting series of concerts throughout the year in Montreal that aim to realize projects that would not take place otherwise. They’re a flexible ensemble of musicians that performs special projects and newly-commissioned works developed through close collaborative relationships with various artists. In 2021 they began their in-house record label, No Hay Discos.
The group have been invited to perform at many major festivals including Everyseeker (Halifax), FIMAV (Victoriaville), Music on Main’s Modulus Festival (Vancouver), Suoni Per Il Popolo and Lux Magna (Montréal), Ottawa Chamberfest, Open Ears (Kitchener), Québec Musiques Parallèles, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Darmstadt Summer Course (Germany) and TIME:SPANS (New York). Their concerts and albums have been applauded in media outlets that include La Presse, CBC/Radio-Canada, Vancouver Sun, Musicworks, Bandcamp, A Closer Listen, Exclaim!, and The Wire.
In addition to presenting the Canadian premieres of important works such as Vinko Globokar’s Laboratorium and XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! by Jennifer Walshe, their recently commissioned works include Three Unisons for Four Voices (2024), a 70-minute work by Sarah Davachi, and Steven Takasugi Il Teatro Rosso—a multimedia piece that also engages cinematographer Huei Lin, which they not only premiered but also recorded. They have also commissioned or worked closely with composers such as Mauricio Pauly, Sabrina Schroeder, Catherine Lamb, Pierluigi Billone, Andrea Young, Anthony Tan, Émilie Girard-Charest, Ida Toninato, and Navid Navab, and successfully presented renowned guest artists such as Eve Egoyan, Gayle Young, Carmina Escobar, Nadah El Shazly, Vahram Sargsyan, Susanna Hood, Gabriel Dharmoo, White Boy Scream, and Pamela Z.
