Passions, for violin and piano, deals with the intermingling of influences in my life as an Asian American: the folk tunes that have surrounded me since my childhood and the western-based education of classical music and twentieth-century techniques. For Passions, I composed music idiomatic for the er-hu (Chinese fiddle) and the sheng (Chinese aerophone) and combined attributes for violin lines. As a contrast, the music for the piano alternates between various pentatonic tapestries and neo- romantic, neo-tonal influences.
