SELECTED COMPOSITIONS
E cielo e sera
Year: 2025
Instrumentation: soprano, piano
Duration: 5'
E cielo e sera contemplates the fleeting and unpredictable nature of our existence through the setting of two renowned Italian poems – “Il lampo” by Giovanni Pascoli and “Ed è subito sera” by Salvatore Quasimodo. Both poems explore the brevity of human life, but in drastically different tones. “Il lampo” utilizes the metaphor of a dramatic and terrifying lightning storm, in which a house appears and disappears in a flash and the earth violently awakens. In contrast, “Ed è subito sera” takes on this theme with an air of calmness and peace. In the words of the poet, life is standing in the heart of the earth, pierced by a ray of sunlight; death is but the arrival of evening.
"Love" (from Pastorale)
Year: 2025
Instrumentation: soprano, piano
Duration: 5'30"
“Love” is the final movement of Pastorale, a four-movement song cycle originally composed for soprano and orchestra which explores the different seasons of love. The three movements preceding “Love” detail the carefreeness of youth, the pleasant stirrings of first love, and the passionate fervor of a lover in turmoil.
This last movement, simply titled “Love”, contemplates the essence of true love, stripped of embellishments and superficialities. True love is timeless, having endured, steadfast and unwavering, through the highs and lows of life.
Travel
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: mezzo-soprano, piano
Duration: 2'30"
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem "Travel" explores themes of wanderlust and escapism, set against a backdrop of the industrial revolution. The narrator expresses gratitude for the place and the people she has, yet she has an insatiable desire to escape her everyday life, no matter where the journey may take her.
Night
Year: 2025
Instrumentation: solo piano
Duration: 10'30"
In Robert Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night”, the narrator speaks of his painful yet familiar experience with loneliness. The night and various objects in it – the city lights, the moon, the clock tower, a night watchman – paint a sorrowful yet beautiful picture of the narrator’s despair and isolation amidst the passage of time. Each one of the five movements of Night corresponds with a stanza from the poem.
The Island and the Albatross
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: piano quartet
Duration: 11'
The ocean is the place from which life first emerged on Earth, and in numerous instances, the ocean becomes the sacred final resting place to which we return. It is a giver and a taker; its vast expanse both connects and separates us across continents. Through the ages, people have braved the tempestuous seas in their quest to begin anew in a foreign land. The Island and the Albatross is a tale of a seabird caught in a storm and stranded on an island where it learns to adapt and build a new life. Symbolically, this piece pays homage to my own parents’ courageous journey across the seas from revolution-torn China to America. The Island and the Albatross captures the bravery, perseverance, and strength it takes to start anew, and the spirit of adventure that inspires us to cross oceans.
Refuge
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: SATB choir, solo violoncello
Duration: 4'
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
– Berthold Auerbach
I composed Refuge as a love letter to one of the most precious gifts that the universe has given me: music. Sara Teasdale’s poignant poem vividly encapsulates that essence in music which has the power to move, inspire, and comfort us in times of darkness, even when all hope seems lost.
The Never-Celebrated Birthday
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: soprano, trumpet, piano
Duration: 7'30"
The Never-Celebrated Birthday sets text by my dear friend Yekaterina Lynch, for whom I composed this work. The poem describe the complex emotions experienced by the narrator surrounding a now-estranged figure in their life. Many of us have maybe experienced such a relationship at some point in our lives – one that is significant and life-changing, but, in the words of the poet, “perhaps took a little too much from [us].”
Pastorale
Year: 2020, revised 2024
Instrumentation: soprano solo, orchestra 2.2(II=ca).2(II=bcl).2(II=cbn)-2.2.2.0-timp+2-hp-cel-str
Duration: 21'
Pastorale is an exploration of the different seasons of love: the unbridled carefreeness and optimism of youth, the confusing but pleasant stirrings of first love, the feverish throes of passion, and the steadfast and enduring essence of true love.
Guard Me from the Night
Year: 2023
Instrumentation: orchestra 2.2.2.2-2.2.2.0-timp+2-pno-str
Duration: 7'30"
Guard Me from the Night is inspired by my parents’ experience growing up in the dark and oppressive era of China’s cultural revolution. They bore witness to the most evil and depraved aspects of humankind, and experienced betrayal, loss, and persecution. But in this darkness that seemed to stretch on without an end, both of them held determinedly on to a deep conviction that one day, they will leave this corruption behind and create a better life for themselves. They accomplished that and so much more, graduating at the top of their respective classes from the top university in China and moving to the US to begin a new life here. As Victor Hugo writes in Les Misérables, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” Guard Me from the Night is the personification of both the ferocity of darkness and the eventual, inevitable arrival of dawn.
She’s An Enigma
Year: 2023
Instrumentation: tenor saxophone, trumpet in B-flat, double bass, piano
Duration: 4'30"
“You will find no map to guide you, for her landscape is ever-changing.”
– John Mark Green
Stylistically inspired by and incorporating elements of jazz, tango, and noir, She’s An Enigma celebrates themes of femininity, confidence, and romance. Underneath the musical embellishments and ornaments that create an atmosphere of luxury and sophistication, a warm and tender melody embodies the vulnerability, sensuality, and humanity that permeates womanhood.
Nocturne
Year: 2022
Instrumentation: soprano solo, piano
Duration: 4'
Nocturne describes a young woman's magical and dreamlike experience of falling in love for the first time. In her ecstasy the entire night is transformed. Every star, every footstep, every rustle of the brush sings to her. So full of joy is she, it is as though her soul has left the earth and taken to the skies.c which has the power to move, inspire, and comfort us in times of darkness, even when all hope seems lost.
Golden Hours
Year: 2022
Instrumentation: string quartet
Duration: 9'30"
Golden Hours depicts the picturesque hours at sunset and sunrise when sunbeams over the horizon dye the sky warm hues of amber and gold – a breathtaking representation of the beauty in both beginnings and endings. dusk paints a nostalgic image of a balmy pastoral evening, a moment in which one reflects with gratitude on the day past, while simultaneously looking forward with hope to the day ahead. daybreak portrays the magic of the first rays of morning sunlight, gently waking a sleeping world and heralding the triumphant beginning of a new day.
desert down
Year: 2020, revised 2021
Instrumentation: solo violin
Duration: 4'
desert down was first conceived in October/November 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. After so many months in lockdown, I yearned to write something lighthearted and uplifting – something that will make people smile and raise their spirits. desert down was inspired by Celtic and Western folk tunes and fiddle music. The opening and ending sections are exciting, energetic, and playful, while the middle section is bluesy and filled with sass and swagger.