Sinfonietta and large Ensemble
The Dào of Cow
for chamber orchestra (2024)
This piece draws inspiration from Zhuangzi’s fable The Dào of Cow, not by retelling the story but by exploring its philosophical depth. The three stages of Ding’s cutting technique become three ways of understanding the world, rendered here as shifting musical layers. Melodies and sounds move as independent lines that intertwine, collide, and reshape space and time, echoing Zhuangzi’s search for inner order amid uncertainty.
Blending elements of Chinese Daoist music with contemporary musical language, the work creates a dialogue between tradition and modernity. Gradual transformations in texture reflect the idea of “from complexity to simplicity,” while deliberate dissonances and noisy timbres reveal the tension between an inner sense of order and the complexity of the external world.
2024 – Mizzou International Composers Festival
The Dao of Cow premiered on July 25th (Columbia, MO) at Missouri Theatre by the Alarm Will Sound
Between Connection
for large ensemble (2024)
This piece reflects on how the phone has become a virtual bridge and an effortless way to stay connected across distance and emotion. Yet the immediacy of instant messaging creates a quiet tension. A ringtone can bring comfort, but it can also trigger anxiety as we wait for an immediate reply.
Each sound of the phone carries anticipation and uncertainty. We listen for the voice we want to hear and for the message we hope will arrive, living in a state of subtle vigilance. Through this small device, we are always connected to someone on the other side of the screen. The phrase “We are together, we will always be together” captures the paradox of modern connectedness. It offers reassurance, and at the same time reveals how fragile and uneasy that reassurance can be.
2024 – SÄVELLYSPAJA International Composition Masterclass & Workshop
Between Connection premiered on June 30th (Finland) by Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
Some Kind of Weapon
for sinfonietta (2025)
This piece is inspired by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a film that reshaped how I understood martial-arts stories. As a child, I imagined heroes defeating enemies, but this film showed me that the real prisons are the life scripts people cannot escape.
The film’s fight scenes also speak in their own emotional language. The bamboo forest duel appears graceful, but its slow rhythm carries tension, control, and suffocation beneath the surface.
In this piece, I use sound to capture the clash of weapons, the stillness before movement, and the suppressed voice struggling to break through. It is not simply a response to a film, but an expression of resistance, longing, and the search for a path beyond prescribed roles.
2025 – Kansas City Sinfonietta
Some Kind of Weapon premiered on August 16 at the PLAYground concert by the Kansas City Sinfonietta.