I sank, deeper and deeper, into a silence that seemed to have no end. The world above dissolved;
only the hush of water remained, slipping past my ears like a distant memory.
My thoughts unraveled, thinning into nothingness.
When dawn finally broke, it did not awaken me.
My last breath loosened from within, rising in a fragile string of bubbles toward a light
I could no longer reach. The surface shimmered—so near, so untouchable.
And yet, I lingered—suspended, neither gone nor returned
—only a body adrift beneath the trembling glow, submerged, yet somehow still here.
Dear Xun,
Congratulations on receiving the Platinum Prize in the Composition category of the Ravel Award International Music Competition. With your solo piano work, Submerged, Yet, you presented a profoundly evocative and atmospheric composition that beautifully captures the poetic imagery of your programme notes. Your writing reveals a creator with a highly sensitive ear for resonance, tonal colour, and introspective musical narratives.
The delicate, impressionistic textures of the piece effectively translated the sensation of descending into an endless silence. Your harmonic language and the deliberate, unhurried pacing created a genuine sense of weightlessness, perfectly mirroring the concept of a body adrift beneath a "trembling glow." The way you utilized the piano's resonance to depict the "hush of water" and the "fragile string of bubbles" demonstrated a mature understanding of the instrument's expressive capabilities and a deep affinity for intimate storytelling.
To refine your compositional architecture further, it would be valuable to explore a wider spectrum of textural and dynamic contrasts. While the sustained, suspended atmosphere is central to the work's identity, introducing more pronounced structural turning points could give the narrative greater depth. For instance, the contrast between the unreachable, shimmering surface and the profound depths could be heightened by exploring more extreme registers of the keyboard or by introducing fleeting moments of rhythmic urgency before returning to stillness.
By carefully planning the progression of tension and release within this ambient framework, you can ensure that the hypnotic quality of the music remains continuously engaging without risking a sense of stasis. Greater differentiation between the conceptual "light" and the "nothingness" will allow the listener to experience the emotional weight of your vision with even greater clarity.
You possess a deeply personal and imaginative compositional voice, and your ability to translate abstract, philosophical states into sound is highly commendable. We congratulate you once again on your outstanding achievement and wish you continued inspiration, artistic discovery, and success in your musical career.
Kind regards,
Ravel Award IMC Team