12 Ways to Say Goodbye, Op. 23 (Mok)

Movements

i. Caps and Gowns, ii Always Us, iii Parting in Life I: Fly!, iv Dearer for the Absence, v. Silent Estrangement, vi. Farewell in Death I: The Unreached Valediction, vii. Shattered Goblets, viii. The Parting of the Ways, ix. Parting in Life II: In Exile, x. Heathrow Terminal 3, xi. This Pillow That Wouldn’t Let Go of Your Scent, xii. Farewell in Death II: Till Death Do Us Part

Notes

12 Ways to Say Goodbye is a suite that gradually teaches us the gravity of farewells. What begins as youthful goodbyes, buoyed by an idealistic belief in unbreakable bonds, grows heavier as the work unfolds, revealing how separations — whether by distance, conflict, exile, or death — leave behind echoes that shape who we become.

The Chinese idiom 生離死別 lends the pivotal third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth movements their titles, dividing the suite into four arcs. The hopeful exhilaration of the first culminates in parents’ blessings as a child leaves home, before giving way to the slow realisation of absence, where drifting apart ends in the heartbreak of a missed final farewell. The suite then turns political, tracing disagreements and ruptures that culminate in exile, and through the uncertainty of reunion shaped by the new and fragile identity of the migrant, it ultimately finds solace in love that endures even unto death.

Performances