Xiaoyong Chen constantly performs a balancing act in his music between his native Beijing and his current home in Hamburg, where he studied with György Ligeti and has been teaching composition and intercultural mediation since 2013. His pieces are thus "west-eastern travel societies": in addition to the European instruments, several thousand-year-old Chinese sounds can be heard, for example from the mouth organ sheng, the table harp zheng, the lute pipa or the yangqin (similar to a Western zither). The composer lets the sometimes rugged cultural differences, the seemingly unsuitable sound material and understanding of music come together in a melting pot and produce fascinating new and independent "mixtures" from them, which are always the result of serious work. "Will the art of the future be based on tradition?" asks Chen. And adds unmoved: "If so, why?"