The majestic beauty and savage turbulence that one often beholds while witnessing an awesome act of nature is also evident in Lois V Vierk's (b. 1951) vigorous and delicate music. In her meticulously wrought works, she enfolds the rapture of opulent expression in the elegance of formal rigour, a combination that derives much of its power and grace from a sensitive integration of Western experimental practices with the traditional classical music of Japan.

"I've always felt equally drawn to the West and to the East", Vierk explains, "in terms of my analytical training in Western music and the musical principles I learned during twelve years of actively studying and performing gagaku, ancient Japanese court music." Because both musical cultures occupy such prominent places in Vierk's musical imagination, she recognised important points of intersection, including structural clarity and timbral sensuousness - musical elements that she had inherited from the previous generation of composers.