Music underscores shared quest for harmony

Learning to compose music for Chinese instruments proved a gradual process. His early attempts involved the pipa (a traditional lute) and sheng (a free-reed wind instrument), which he mostly learned about from video tutorials and guidance from friends abroad.

"I had to adapt my writing to the character of the instruments," he said. "It wasn't about capability — they (musicians) could play all the notes — but about understanding the way the instrument wants to speak."

He said the first piece he wrote that he felt truly reflected both his voice and the instrument's spirit was for the guqin (traditional Chinese zither) and string quartet, a milestone in his creative journey.

Language, too, was a path of careful immersion. Athens began studying Chinese while at the Juilliard in New York, where he received his Bachelor of Music in composition in 2010, motivated by a desire to engage fully with the culture.

"Some people ask me how I feel in China now, and I just tell them it feels like home," he said.