influence of Ligeti on her musical compositions, she says that Ligeti affected her life in a more philosophical way on a deeper level. At the time, Dong's English was poor, but she never felt that the two had trouble communicating with one another. Although 40 years her senior, Ligeti's experiences in Romania and Hungary during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia were similar to Kui's in China during the student movements, and when sharing their experiences, they often felt that "history was repeating itself." Dong does admit one conversation with Ligeti that did directly affect her identity as a composer. When Ligeti asked her what kind of composer she wanted to be known as, she replied "a Chinese composer". He then asked her why she wanted to be a Chinese composer. Dong could not provide a clear reason or justify herself. After that conversation, Dong began questioning her identity as a composer and why she felt the need to make her music recognizably Chinese. This marked the beginning of Dong's compositions that began testing the boundaries of what was Chinese and what was Western in her music. In these pieces, she creates a clash between sounds of each culture rather than limit herself to writing "Chinese" music within a Western art music context. Dong's computer piece Crossing is representative of this period. In this piece, the jarring juxtaposition between rock 'n roll slap bass guitar and a well-known Beijing opera character is in no way subtle. The timbres in Crossing are varied, unpredictable, and dissonantly opposed with one another, very different from her earlier computer piece Flying Apples, which is largely a single timbre. In 1999 Dong began to improvise with Christian Wolff and Larry Polansky, and they formed an ensemble called Trio. This would add another element to her compositions that we see in her work Earth, Water, Wood, Metal, Fire (2001), which were based on Dong's piano improvisations. In these pieces, Dong takes inspiration from the five elements that make up the material world according to traditional Chinese beliefs, but is not seeking to write a programmatic piece. For example, Dong says that the piece Earth does not refer literally to soil, but rather is a spiritual representation of mankind that inhabits the earth. The movements Wood and Metal refer to pencils and metal rods placed in the piano strings that create distinct timbres. Fire, the last movement, is