The International Clarinet Association’s May 2021 Reviews feature a review of Les Temps Modernes’ December Chrysanthemum: Chamber Music of Xiaogang Ye:
“The 2020 album December Chrysanthemum is a fusion of independently developed and long-lived styles, melded together in new and interesting ways by composer Xiaogang Ye. Xiaogang does a masterful job blending the two distant and distinct styles of Western art music with those of traditional Chinese folk musics. The familiar chamber ensemble of mixed winds and strings along with piano and percussion is augmented with a zheng (a type of Chinese zither) to achieve a surprisingly well balanced blend of divergent timbres. … The album is expertly performed by the French ensemble Les Temps Modernes… Clarinetist Jean-Louis Bergerand contributes to two of the works on the album: Basong Cuo and Hibiscus, and in both instances his tone is relaxed and effortless, and his technique and blend are impeccable.”
—Gary Fair, Clarinet
See the full review on Clarinet.org
