My composition May-SHEE-Ka from Atzlan for orchestra and choir creates a sound world that imagines what some of the sounds might have been like when the Mexica people first arrived on the banks of Lake Texcoco in the early development of the Mesoamerican region. This along with my research of the Mexicas musical and cultural practices provides the context for this work for full orchestra and SATB choir. The title of my work May-SHEE-Ka from Aztlan is derived from the pronunciation of the word Mexica in the Nahuatl language of Mesoamerica. Mexica is the name of the nomadic tribe more commonly referred to as the Aztecs. It is believed that the Mexica came from Atzlan, which is said to be the ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, a key cultural group of Mesoamerica. The word Azteca comes from the Nahuatl word for people from Atzlan. The title of this work is my own extraction of this historical understanding.

The puzzle known as tangram was the inspiration behind this composition. Just as the seven pieces of the tangram create shapes, seven contrasting musical fragments appear as thematic materials from which to draw sonic imagery. Sapphic Fragments for two sopranos This composition was constructed from “broken” materials - an analogy for Sappho's dismembered poem. These broken materials were arranged in a pointillistic manner. I drew inspiration from M.C. Escher's works to vary thematic fragments of this work. M.O.N.T.A.G.E. for flute, clarinet, violin and cello This work was influenced by the video work, Wantee, by artist, Laure Prouvost. The title, M.O.N.T.A.G.E., is an acrostic, using words that show intimate relations with my composition: Multicolour, Oscillation, Numbers, Television, the Artist, Gleam, Etc. Once Emerged from the Grey of Night for flute, clarinet, horn, violin, viola and cello This sextet consists of numerous fragments with various colours and textures, forming a musical collage. A picture-poem by Paul Klee offered the starting point for this work. Scale-Free Spaces for flute, guitar, viola and cello I drew compositional ideas from the video installation, Irreversible, by artist Norimichi Hirakawa. This quartet was composed of brief fragments of dots, lines and movements. Various fragments were structured in forms of both simplicity and complexity. For the latter, ideas were drawn from the study in randomness, ‘Scale-Free Network’. String Quartet no. 3 This composition consists of four movements. In the first and third movements, the sound of rain drops and images of light through stained glass are explored. The second and fourth movements effect a structural metamorphoses of musical elements. I drew inspiration from Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis. A Thousand Plateaux for orchestra In this orchestral work, a variety of images of both plateaux and movements were invoked. The work was inspired by both the book, A Thousand Plateaux by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.