It's scarcely been six months since Jindong Cai, conductor of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, arrived on campus with the idea of creating an Asian music festival at Stanford. But the inaugural Pan-Asian Musical Festival, which began Tuesday, is off to a glittering start, with a schedule that reads more like a long-established event than a newcomer.

Highlights of the festival, which continues through Saturday evening, will include Cai conducting the student symphony performing U.S. premieres of works by the internationally known Chinese composer Zhou Long and the Cambodian American composer Chinary Ung. A performance this evening by the New Ensemble Stanford and visiting musicians also will feature works by Zhou and Ung, as well as Japanese composer Kiyoshi Furukawa and Hyo-shin Na, a two-time recipient of the Korean National Composers Prize.

The festival offers a broad range of musical styles from a variety of cultures, and includes traditional Asian instruments such as the Chinese pipa, taiko drumming, computer music and combined Asian and Western instrument ensembles, Cai said. Although music is the primary emphasis, the festival also will examine the relationship of music to society and other art forms, including film, dance, literature and visual arts, he added. Planned as an annual event, the festival this year includes a film screening and a performance/installation by Chinese artist Yang Jiechang. On Tuesday evening, Cai and Sheila Melvin, his wife, spoke at the Bookstore and signed copies of their book, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (Algora, 2004), which Cai co-authored with Sheila Melvin, his wife.

In the future, the conductor plans to focus programming more narrowly on specific regions—South Asia will be featured in 2006—and to add a symposium. Cai also plans, if funding allows, to commission new works. "Hopefully the festival will become a major platform to introduce new music from contemporary Asia," he said.

The festival underscores ongoing efforts at Stanford to recognize and understand essential aspects of the relationship between music and our evolving university and national identity, said Arnold Rampersad, cognizant dean for the humanities, School of Humanities and Sciences.

The festival "assumes that the full meaning of Asia, and of America's relationship to Asia, cannot be grasped without a keen appreciation of its music and its extraordinary artistic heritage. This premise is a vital part of our vision of the emerging global order. After all, many Americans and Europeans who once saw Asia as forever peripheral to that order now identify it increasingly as quite possibly its future center," Rampersad added.

Festival events follow:

Feb. 9: A program of "New Music from Asia" will feature works by contemporary composers, including Zhou Long, Chinary Ung and Hyo-shin Na. The concert will include a performance/installation titled Scroll of Secret Merit 2 by artist Yang Jiechang, whose works also are on display at the Cantor Arts Center's On the Edge exhibition of contemporary art from China. At 8 p.m. in Dinkelspiel Auditorium. (Yang's work also will be exhibited in the Art Gallery Feb. 11-20.)

Feb. 10: In a talk, "Still a Little Mao in the Mozart," Academy Award-winning director Allan Miller will discuss his work on music in China, followed by a screening of his 1979 film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, featuring new footage from Stern's return to China in 1999. At 7 p.m. in Campbell Auditorium, Braun Music Center.

Feb. 12: On Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based modern taiko fusion group that incorporates dance, electronics, jazz and rock with the ancient art of Japanese drumming, will perform at 2:30 p.m. in Dinkelspiel Auditorium. At 8 p.m. in Dinkelspiel, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra will perform U.S. premieres of works by Chinary Ung and Zhou Long, and selections from Passages, a collaborative composition by Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass. Pipa artist Min Xiao-Fen will be featured in Zhou's pipa concerto, King Chu Doffs His Armour. The concert will be followed by a reception hosted by the Friends of Music at Stanford.

The festival is sponsored by the Department of Music and the Asian Religions and Cultures Initiative. Admission to events is $10 general and $5 with student ID. Donation boxes to support the fundraising efforts of the Stanford Student Relief committee for tsunami relief, earmarked for Save the Children, will be available at all events. Festival information is available online at http://music.stanford.edu/PAFestival2005/index.html.