Lo Shu Square by Alex Nikiporenko

In ancient China, when the Lo River flooded, the people offered sacrifices to the river god, asking him to return the water to its banks. Suddenly, a turtle emerged from the water with a curious pattern on its shell – a grid of nine squares. Each square had dots adding up to numbers 1 to 9.

The pattern became known as the “Lo Shu Square” – a 3x3 magic square where the sum of each row, column and diagonal adds up to 15. It is an important emblem in Feng Shui, the art of geomancy concerned with the placement of objects in relation to natural energy.

In my piece, the square is used to determine both the pitches and the rhythms played by the guitar trio.

“Lo Shu Square” was written for What Guitar Trio and premiered by them at 840: New Music for Guitars on 17 December 2019.