A native of Inner Mongolia, Wenchen Qin grew up with the folk music of his homeland and is now one of China’s most influential composers. His violin concerto The Border of the Mountains exploits the extraordinary colours and flexibility of both orchestra and soloist, echoing nature and the songs and spirituality of the mountains. Each movement of the cello concerto Dawn is based on a fragment of text by the poet Hai Zi, while Calling for Phoenix, inspired by the series of paintings Phoenix in Fire by Xiao-he Tang and Li Cheng, is an intensely virtuosic concerto for suona, a traditional double-reed instrument.