Jen-Fang Chen - The Mountain Wraith
About: Jen-Fang Chen is a sound designer for theater and a contemporary music composer. Her creative practice spans across technological art performances, sound installations, and film scoring. Trained in both composition and sound design, she explore the intersection of acoustic and electronic media, often integrating field recordings, instrumental writing, and digital technologies. Her works seek to expand listening beyond conventional concert settings, creating immersive experiences that blur boundaries between music, space, and narrative. In recent years, She have also extended my practice to XR-based performances and multichannel sound installations.
Piece: "The Mountain Wraith" was originally written as a chamber piece for viola and guitar, where the two instruments intertwine to evoke an atmosphere of spectral resonance. The composition employs extended techniques—such as sul ponticello, tremolo, percussive tapping on the guitar body, and fragile harmonics—to create an unstable timbral field, suggesting the elusive and ghostly presence of mountain spirits. Structurally, the piece unfolds in layered sections of tension and release, alternating between sparse textures and dense overlapping gestures.
For the presentation at Sound Kitchen 2025, the work has been reimagined as a multichannel electroacoustic version. While the overall structure and sonic dramaturgy remain unchanged, the live performers and real-time processing have been replaced by pre-constructed electronic layers diffused across space. Through spatialization and shifting resonance, the new version retains the piece’s spectral and intangible qualities, immersing listeners in a sound world that is both disorienting and haunting.