Cantus Curatio II (Healing Melody II, 2008) for Violin Solo is dedicated to victims of Cervical Cancer.  The significant musical language in this piece is Non-retrogradable Rhythm, modes from Olivier Messiane's Modes of limited transposition and composer's new mode (C-C#-D-Eb-F#-G-A-Bb).  It consists of four sections: A-B-C-A': Nonretrogradable rhythm is thoroughly used in the entire piece. The first section A includes Messiaen's mode 7 and Choi's mode; the second section B comprises mode 3, the third section C contains mode 4 and mode 2, and the fourth section mode 7.

duration about 7 min.

Composer's Note of Cantus Curatio Series

Another artistic outlet that I have been working on as a composer is my composition series titled Cantus Curatio ("Healing Melody" in Latin) for solo instrument, which is similar to the solo composition series by Luciano Berio and Vincent Persichetti.  Each piece is dedicated to victims who are diagnosed with a different disease.  The inspiration for this series originated from a meeting with a dancer Debra Keller (Dance faculty at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) with whom I was working for dance class in 2003.  One day in 2006 she asked me whether she could use one of my works, “Healing Melody” for Violin and Marimba (2003) for her dance project "to Mother" in Princeton, NJ because this particular piece reminded her of her mother who died of breast cancer.  After the performance, I ran into several people who have suffered from beast cancer which inspired me to write a first Cantus Curatio series piece, Cantus Curatio I for alto saxophone and piano dedicated to breast cancer patients.