Jan. - March 2024 (for 2 violins and piano)The original spark came during the tap-dancing-eggs sequence from the musical “Something Rotten!”, the spark of which was an image of two soft-boiled eggs trying to dance a tango together.Soon after, I received news that an important musical figure in my life, a phenomenal bandoneon player who thought me the art of tango music, has recently been fighting…

April 2024 (for sinfonietta)The third movement of The Scarlet Symphony, sinfonietta versionfor the Albany Symphony’s “Orchestrating for the 21st Century” workshop (June 4-9, 2024)A wild child’s erratic ballet that spirals out of control."O brook! O foolish and tiresome little brook!” cried Pearl, after listening awhile to its talk. “Why art thou so sad? Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the…

March - April 2024 (for 4 actors, violin, ukulele, tenor recorder, trombone, and piano)Dave Malloy and Annie Tippe, award-winning composer and director respectively, taught a class at Princeton on musical writing and adapting! We were divided into groups and each assigned a role (director, book writer, lyricist, composer) to adapt fairy tales into a half-hour musical. My group took the Russian…

July 2023 (for solo violin)This is a gift for Gil Shaham,written with loving memories of performing the Barber Violin Concerto with Mr. Shaham in the National Youth Orchestra of the U.S.A. in celebration of NYO-USA’s 10th anniversary.This is a sonic imagination of what Barber on a walk, in the midst of envisioning his Violin Concerto, would be like, with references to the memorable melodic…

July 2023 (for alto saxophone and string quartet)With a feeling of anticipation, joy and flight, this is my piece to celebrate the beginning of a new chapter in life.Commissioned by Caden Helmer and premiered at the NYO2 Chamber Music Extravaganza concert on July 13th, 2023 by Caden Helmer, Vivian Chang, Cadence Shevy, Isabelle Son, and Caleb Graupera. NEW: Orchestra Version!Commissioned by The…

July 2022 (for solo marimba)A short piece written after a wonderful meting with a percussionist at the National Youth Orchestra of the USA 2022, Glenn Choe! I will never forget the way Glenn came up to me saying that he loves composers and collaborating with them. He made my day when he sent me this video today, keeping his promise that he would play this little piece for me someday. Thank you,…

April 2023 (for cello and accordion)I was moved to write this piece after reading “EPICAC”, the heart-wrenchingly beautiful short story by Kurt Vonnegut that features the fictional EPICAC computer, the largest and smartest on Earth built to solve hefty world issues. Through his interactions with the unnamed narrator, who wants to woo his sweetheart Pat into marriage, EPICAC learns to love and…

April 2023 (for solo trombone)“In the origin, women were truly the sun, genuine human beings. Now, women are the moon. Living by the light of others and shining with a pale, sickly light, like the face of someone with an illness. We must now take back our sun that has been hidden away.”- Hiratsuka RaichōCommissioned and premiered by Grace Ng at her Juilliard Pre-College Senior Recital on May…

Nov. 2022 - April 2023 (for four-hand piano)Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reimagined. Instead of spending the remaining days of his life suffering and caged in the mockery of what his life used to be as a human, what if Gregor jumped out of the window and flew away?“Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer…

Sept. 2022 - Jan. 2023 (for SAT voices)Is the fierce and ferocious tiger scared of anything in this world? What could it be? Inspired by Pansori, a traditional Korean genre of musicalstorytelling, this piece seeks to tell the story of the Korean folk tale about a tiger that mistakes a dried persimmon for a terrifying, unearthly beast. The word “dried persimmon” is left in Korean (곶감 / “gojgam”)…