As a composer, I am very interested in bringing different musical cultures together—and have gone about it in many different ways. Here are two examples.

First, a duet for pipa and erhu entitled Zhou. The instrumentation is purely Chinese, but the musical form is quite Western: a strict set of variations.

Second, a movement from my Sextet for Alto Saxophone and Brass—the second movement. Here, the instrumentation in entirely Western, and the form is as well, since it’s a fugue. (A bit of a “jazz” fugue, at that). But the underlying meter is Arabic: a 10/8 cycle in the form 2+3+3+2 beats.

My experience has been that when cultures talk to each other—musically and otherwise—good things happen!