The year is 1860, and the place is 福州 (Fuzhou), my hometown—but a Fuzhou very different from the one I knew growing up.

Long before I was born, much of its old architecture had given way to the new, and many of its stories had faded from memory. It is strange to know that I can never experience the Fuzhou my ancestors knew. Whatever truth remains of that city has been obscured by time.

This piece grew from contemplating truth and the ways it can become distorted over time. In music, as in life, we encounter fragments, mishear sounds, and mistake one thing for another. But how important is it to recover what was once “true”? Could what survives through distortion possess a truth—and a beauty—of its own?

Fuzhou 1860

for violin and piano

World Premiere: March 30, 2014, Indiana University — Yu-Chen Hsu, violin; Yi-Han Chen, piano.

The piece was subsequently awarded first prize in the 2015 Cortona Prize competition and received its European premiere in Italy, performed by Ari Streisfeld, a former violinist of the JACK Quartet, and Amir Khosrowpour.