DESIRE

Overview

Desire is the first album of songs from the song cycle Desire and Attachment by Australian composer Robert Moss, featuring Chinese-born Fifi Rong singing in both Mandarin and English, and Martyn Ford conducting.

“The project is exceptional! Always something new and stimulating. The singer is so seductive; total clarity from the vocals even as she almost whispers, and as the strings thunder and drive. Amazing!”
– David Robinson, 20th Century Fox

Composer

Robert Moss

Biography

Robert Moss has been writing music all his life. He studied orchestral composition at the same time
as playing various instruments in bands and studios before settling into a career as an award-winning screen-composer.

His new intercultural project Desire and Attachment is a two-part song cycle in Mandarin and English
for string orchestra, voice, and additional instruments. The songs explore an intersection between
popular music, the orchestra and popular Chinese music.

Production Team

Vocalist

FiFi Rong

Biography

Europe-based Chinese artist, Fifi Rong, blends Chinese influences with Western popular music in her unmistakably distinctive, melancholic and sensual vocal sound, and has established herself internationally as a stand-out live performer, with headline shows throughout the UK, Europe, and China and performing with Yello at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and their seven-date arena tour of Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Fifi recently released her acclaimed double album “There is a Funeral in My Heart for Every Man I Loved” in both English and Mandarin. Having collaborated with artists including Yello, Tricky, Phaeleh and Skepta, she is a perfect fit with the powerful but sensitive multi-lingual orchestral work of Robert Moss.

Conductor

Biography

Martyn Ford is an internationally renowned conductor of major symphony orchestras including The London Philharmonic, The London Symphony, The Royal Choral Society, (winning gold and platinum record awards), The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, and major orchestras in Cardiff, Cape Town, Prague, and Quebec.

He has worked with some of the world’s greatest rock artists including The Rolling Stones, Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Bryan Ferry, Sir Cliff Richard, The Who, Lou Reed, Marc Bolan, Bob Marley, Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin, Toto, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Nash, and Barclay James Harvest, and alongside Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Tim Rice, and most recently, conducting an orchestra for the “Woman to Woman” tour featuring Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham.

Martyn Ford

Artist

Sophia Zhang

Biography

Sophia Zhang was born in Beijing but educated in Hong Kong. Since childhood, she learned Chinese ink painting and calligraphy from her artist mother. Later she became a fashion designer for few years, but found herself still drawn to arts, soon she decided to study fine arts again. She loves mixed culture, and wants to present the beauty of difference via her art.

Translator

Biography

Chuqiao “Kat” Sun grew up in Beijing. She had a great interest in writing and literature in both Mandarin and English. She translated short articles, lyrics and dialogue while living in China. After completing high school, she moved to Australia, and translated websites for Australian businesses while completing a degree in Marketing. She then completed a master’s degree in Psychotherapy and Counselling at Western Sydney University where she met Robert Moss, who asked her to translate his lyrics into Mandarin, drawing on her background on linguistics and psychology.

Chuqiao Kat Sun

Guzheng player

GUZHENG PLAYER

Biography

Chiu Tan Ching obtained her first degree at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, double majoring in GuZheng and Chinese percussion instruments. She also holds a Master’s degree in Music at the Hong Kong Baptist University. She established a Chinese music school, named Music Academy of GuZheng (MAZ) in 2000. Later she founded a non-profit music group, Tanching Zheng Ensemble.

She is a core member of the Chinese Music Virtuosi (CMV) and Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (HKNME). She often performs contemporary or original works for GuZheng in many international music festivals.

Recording Orchestra

Biography

The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Filharmonici města Prahy) is a classical orchestra, predominantly comprised of Czech classical musicians from the State Opera and the Czech National Theatre, as well as jazz and guest musicians. Most of its concerts take place at the opera house.

Recording more than 250 sessions every year at their Smecky Music Studio in Prague, it is one of the most recorded and respected orchestras in the world, working with labels such as Decca, EMI, Sony BMG, Silva Screen Records, Tadlow Music, and international film production companies Paramount, Sony, Lucasfilm and others. David Lynch recorded Lost Highway there in 1997, and Mulholland Drive in 2001.

Their credit list consists of acclaimed composers Alexandre Desplat, Rachel Portman, Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna, Ludovic Bource, Gabriel Yared, Steven Lebetkin, Steve Barakatt and many more.

“Robert would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of Associate Professor Bruce Crossman and Western Sydney University”