Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, whose works (including several film scores) have won numerous internationally renowned prizes, is a regularly commuter between continents and an aesthetic wanderer between the musical cultures of the East and the West. His works are often based on elements and aspects from the traditional music of China: popular melodies, motifs from Beijing opera, the striking scales of Chinese art music, Chinese instruments (like the pipa in "Pipa Concerto"). He has, however, a penchant for the sonic possibilities of the symphony orchestra, in which sound he finds the colors, harmonies, and rhythms with which he can best realize the narrative aesthetic he seeks.
