Duration: 8 minutes | Composed: 2016 (Chou's Annual Commission Award, China) | World Premiere: Soochow University School of Music Concert Hall, Oct. 26 2016 | Performed by: Stephanie Song (Vln.), Alexander Suleiman (Vc.), and Misha Namirovsky (Pno.) | Recording: Coming Soon.

As a frequent traveler I’m always aware of the effects time can have on you in ways such as jet lag or jumping from an Indiana winter to an Australian Summer where the sunrise and sunset times are hugely different. However an interesting exception to global time‐zone “rules” exists in China, with Standard Beijing Time, where despite the 3,000+ mile width of the country everyone wakes up and falls asleep in the one time zone.

In this composition I aimed to construct five regions within the music, united by motivic ideas that moved and changed as the light of day would across such a large expanse of land as China. I also drew on gestural themes and imagined music translations of textures from traditional Sericulture: which is the production of silk and rearing of silkworms. This is reflected in the varying colors of the string instruments and repeated strings of notes which carry through the piano material and fuse with the other instruments in ever changing ways.