Saigon-born P. Q. Phan is one of a burgeoning generation of Asian-American composers to emerge in the 1990s. While essentially academic in stance, Phan's work consistently reexamines the contrast between his native and adoptive cultures, while subtly questioning his role in the latter. Sometimes the dialectic is purely musical, as in the exuberant title track, where raucous clusters and pitch bends on the pipe organ are used to imitate the sound of the "trumpets" Vietnamese kids make out of banana leaves, or in the percussion piece 'Rock Blood' where the thunder of Japanese ceremonial drumming is evoked. Other pieces have a more philosophical subtext, such as the quartet 'Beyond the Mountains,' which represents a quest for nirvana, or the programmatic 'Unexpected Desire,' where the violin's Vietnamese vocal-style inflections depict a courtesan who falls in love with her client, a situation which the composer slyly suggests may mirror his own in this country.

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Saigon-born P. Q. Phan is one of a burgeoning generation of Asian-American composers to emerge in the 1990s. While essentially academic in stance, Phan's work consistently reexamines the contrast between his native and adoptive cultures, while subtly questioning his role in the latter. Sometimes the dialectic is purely musical, as in the exuberant title track, where raucous clusters and pitch bends on the pipe organ are used to imitate the sound of the "trumpets" Vietnamese kids make out of banana leaves, or in the percussion piece 'Rock Blood' where the thunder of Japanese ceremonial drumming is evoked. Other pieces have a more philosophical subtext, such as the quartet 'Beyond the Mountains,' which represents a quest for nirvana, or the programmatic 'Unexpected Desire,' where the violin's Vietnamese vocal-style inflections depict a courtesan who falls in love with her client, a situation which the composer slyly suggests may mirror his own in this country.