Compositions

Sonata No. 1 for Solo Violin: Reflections is a sixteen-minute, four-movement work commissioned by my former violin teacher, Elbert Tsai. I chose the title Reflections because each movement reflects a different aspect of my personality and inner life.

Writing for a single unaccompanied voice has always felt more daunting to me than writing for multiple voices. Without an ensemble to distribute musical ideas across, I found myself continually pushing against the virtuosic capabilities of the violin in search of greater harmonic, textural, and expressive possibilities. As a result, Reflections became a technically demanding work as well as a personal one.

The first movement, I. Ballade Moderato, reflects the meandering nature of my thoughts. Ideas and moods emerge, transform, and pass fleetingly into one another, while an underlying sense of time continues forward.

II. Scherzo Rondo turns toward a more playful side of my personality. I have always found playful music particularly natural to compose, and this movement embraces irony, sarcasm, and unpredictability—a character also present in my Scherzando.

The slower III. Choral Adagio is more peaceful and melancholic. Its harmonic narrative centers on a conflict between A major and B-flat minor, moving through moments of romance and turmoil. Gradually, the conflict subsides, and the movement returns to the A major in which it began.

Lasting less than two minutes, IV. Allegro Ostinato brings the sonata to a brief but furious conclusion. Its rage is initially constrained within the persistent eighth notes of the principal theme, as though held under control. At several moments, however, that restraint breaks, erupting into wild sixteenth-note passages before driving the sonata to its end.

Together, the four movements of Reflections form a musical self-portrait: wandering thought, playfulness and irony, melancholy and tranquility, and finally, concentrated rage—all expressed through the possibilities and extremes of a single violin.

Safari is an adventure in arch form, beginning and ending with stark open strings and tritones. Between these bookends, the music bursts into color, contrasting the mundanity of everyday life with the pursuit of adventure.

From the opening sonorities, the music dissolves into a kind of organized chaos: chords extend freely across bar lines, creating a sense of motion untethered from time. This gradually climaxes into a more stagnant theme, where pulsing quarter notes alternate between the two violins, creating a flowing, seemingly endless sense of entrancement.

The tranquility is soon interrupted by fast, choppy chords, which give way to an undercurrent of rapid sixteenth notes punctuated by jabbing fourths. Triplets propel the music toward a large climax before it recedes into a quiet, distant passage, evoking the isolation and tranquility of being lost in a forest at night.

The earlier stagnant theme eventually returns, now suggesting the relief of watching the sun rise. The music emerges into a triumphant C major before a final series of choppy chords leads back to the stark open strings of the beginning. These opening sounds linger, gradually fading until they disappear into silence.

The inception of Scherzando occurred around midnight about a year before its completion. Earlier that day, feeling sad, I had begun composing a waltz from a melody that had come to mind. By the time I finished writing down its theme, I realized that I was the only person still awake in the house. Something about the stillness of that moment inspired me to begin composing in 7/8, and from there, the music seemed to rush out almost faster than I could write it down.

Of all my works, I feel that Scherzando most closely encompasses my personality and musical voice. I think of it as a direct window into my thoughts: restless and adventurous, but also contemplative, with ideas and harmonies shifting fluidly from one to another. In some ways, its musical language recalls the songs I created before I became closely acquainted with classical music. Since I was five, I have improvised and composed music to accompany stories set in an imaginary world I called Ooyiyland. I have also been told that my earliest compositions resemble Ukrainian folk songs, likely reflecting the folk music I frequently heard as a young child.

This combination of adventure and contemplation shapes Scherzando. Its 7/8 meter is divided into changing groupings of two and three eighth notes, allowing the rhythmic character to transform while the underlying meter remains constant. The first theme, in C-sharp minor, follows a 3–2–2 grouping, while the feistier second theme, in A minor, shifts to 2–3–2. These asymmetrical patterns give the music a sense of continual motion and unpredictability. Amid these shifting minor-key passages are several arrivals in C major—a key that has been my favorite since childhood—which provide moments of brightness and clarity.

Scherzando ultimately became the second movement of my five-movement Dances for String Quartet. The waltz I had originally set out to compose that same night became the suite’s fourth movement, linking the two works to the midnight creative impulse from which Scherzando unexpectedly emerged.

Ooy Song for solo violin began with a melody I wrote when I was seven years old. At the time, I had created an imaginary world called “Ooyiyland,” whose dominant species, the Ooys, were engaged in a war against another species, the Spiders. I composed the opening theme to evoke the struggles of the Ooys, and years later, when my high school violin teacher, Elbert Tsai, asked me to write a piece to perform at his graduating senior violin concert, this childhood melody became the foundation of the work. Given the theme’s origins, Ooy Song was naturally the first title that came to mind.

I have been told that my earliest melodies often resemble Ukrainian folk songs, likely reflecting the Ukrainian folk music I heard frequently as a child. In returning to this early theme, I sought to preserve its folk-song-like character while experimenting with a form of theme and character variations. Rather than simply ornamenting the original melody, each variation explores a distinct emotional state, many of which reflect moods I remember experiencing when I was young.

The theme itself is emotionally almost neutral, but tinged with melancholy. The first variation introduces a more colorful and expressive sadness, while the second abruptly transforms the material into unadulterated joy. The third turns toward intense rage, followed by a fourth characterized by fear and unfamiliarity. The fifth variation exchanges this unease for feistiness and defiance. Finally, the original theme returns, making one last attempt to cling onto life before gradually withdrawing and trailing into nothingness.

Through these contrasting characters, Ooy Song revisits a musical idea from childhood through a later perspective, retaining the simplicity and imaginative world of its origin while allowing the theme to inhabit a broader emotional landscape.

My cadenzas for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto were the first cadenzas I composed and the first original works I premiered before a large audience in a solo concert. My violin teacher, Elbert Tsai, encouraged me to write them after recognizing my interest and ability in composition. He often remarked that their unpredictability made them particularly engaging—you never quite knew what would happen next.

Writing for solo violin also allowed me to draw directly upon my technique as a violinist. The ability to write and perform virtuosically gave me greater freedom to explore complex harmonies and musical ideas, making my first experience composing for unaccompanied violin feel surprisingly natural.

I later performed the third movement of Beethoven’s concerto with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra after winning its concerto competition using my own cadenza.