I have been asked to teach a summer workshop called the Peaks and Potentials at Montana State University. It is designed for high potential 5th-7th grade students. I have always enjoyed working with younger students to help them learn the art of music performance, creativity, and appreciation. Just consider the impact of educating the next generation of musicians and music lovers among us. Montana is a relatively isolated place where contemporary arts do not typically find their way into the general population. I decided to offer a workshop on sound design for visual media. This topic could be interpreted in various ways: it could mean more conventional foley effects for film or venture into experimental video art. It is going to be a rewarding experience for all involved.

Workshop dates: 06/22-26/2009

Tale of an Unborn Child for flute and piano (2006) was performed at the Feminist Theory and Music Symposium at University of North Carolina, Greensboro on 5/29/2009. Flutist Julie Smith and pianist Deborah Hollis did a brilliant job interpreting the work.

This is a looking back entry for this spring. Video collaboration with Benoit Granier was featured at the Athena Festival on 3/15/2009 at Murray State University (Murray, KY USA). Curator for the multimedia concert on the festival was Sebrina Pena Young.

Post Script: Good friend of mine Benoit Granier and I were chatting about music and just life in general one night. The topic of us collaborating on a video project came up. Knowing Ben and I had very different artistic viewpoints, I was a little hesitant to commit to the project. I did not want to ruin our friendship over a collaboration after all. But I was also interested to see how this project would turn up with our very different approaches. To make a long story short, he made the 3D animation and I made the music for 'Made in...". It was a fast and efficient project - we completed the piece in a few very intense days. Through the process, we became more familiar with each other's working mode and got to communicate a lot. We could see how we might improve the piece, but we decided to create a suite of related pieces instead of going back to fix the one we had just made. It is a tiring thing to have to go back and fix things. Usually for me, when a piece is done, it is pretty much done. But anyway, it was a great experience.

Being a music professor is one of my dreams all these years. Now I have a chance to live this dream. Let me explain: The social status (or the lack of) and financial stability that come with the position is of less of a concern. I dreamed of being able to learn through teaching, and share my excitement for knowledge, creativity, and beauty with my students. When I was still in school, I always got very excited when semesters were about to begin just thinking about all the new beautiful things I will discover soon. Of course learning can be achieved in a variety of ways, not limited to academia. But the benefit of doing it together with others in a structured setting makes all the difference for me. My dear students, I hope you all know how lucky you are to be in school and I am glad I can accompany you in part of this wonderful journey.

International Alliance of Women in Music's board members have recently elected Hsiao-Lan as the new president. I am most honored to be able to serve in this capacity, and I thank the Board to give me this wonderful opportunity to further contribute to the organization. I have served on the advocacy committee, and we have an on-going weekly radio request campaign for the past four years. Two years ago, I was elected as board member, and now as president. I must say that IAWM has provided me a supportive community that not only enhances my musical career, but also allows me to get to know many excellent artists and scholars personally.

Four of my works will be featured on this concert on 10/19 at 7:30 PM in the Reynolds Recital Hall at Montana State University. The Sunday Night Multimedia Series is MSU Department of Music's concert series combining electronic music, multichannel audio and live sound diffusion, video, animation, and live performance.

In film scoring, composers are often asked to compose music that is outside of the composers' specialized styles. My film scoring class has been asked to learn how to learn different musical genres, and this is what I came up with after studying various latin/Cubin popular dance music. Admittedly, I did not spend as much time as I would have liked on this project. But here it is. If you care to know the technical details, everything has been done with virtual instruments in Logic.

Listen to the mp3.

As a young child, I was introduced to Tang poems and their beauty by my parents. My father encouraged us to memorize these ancient poems and we made pocket money that way for a while. The emotions and imagery that grow from reading these wonderful literary gems can be very profound. Now that Mia is 2 years old, Daniel thinks it is time for our daughter to be exposed to these poems. And franckly, he wants to learn them himself. He might even make some videos out of these poems in the future.

You can listen to me recite the poems here.

The film scoring class I am teaching has its first project due today. My students are supposed to compose a short piece with a designated haiku or short story in mind when they compose it. I was getting really excited about hearing the projects in a few hours, and I was laying in bed and suddenly I had a quick inspiration: why don't I compose a piece like my students would! The musical ideas just floods into my mind. Thank goodness Mia is asleep so I can have a moment to flush out this piece. What a blast!

Haiku by Kijo Murakami (1865-1938)

The moment two bubbles
are united, they both vanish.
A lotus blooms.