It all started out with a very surprising opportunity – and a conundrum.

Last year, I was fortunate to receive the Freedman Fellowship – surprisingly, as I thought I was too old for it (the age limit was raised from 30 to 35 last year). When I considered my project, I was compelled to use it as a chance to branch off my current career path: from violist and curator to creator.

I named the project multitudes because it contains a sprawling set of ideas and desires.

Lewis Luman Cross (1864–1951): Passenger Pigeons, c. 1900. Image courtesy of Grand Rapids Art Museum.

I often feel the cracks come to the surface of an identity made of many parts. As a freelance musician, I am performer, curator, teacher, administrator, project manager and van driver. As a mixed-race person, I have both Chinese and white Australian ancestry, which I’ve struggled to understand and express my whole life. I felt like a heap of random bits and pieces; and multitudes gave me a chance to try to make them into a mosaic.

I wanted to write music, but to do so in a way that reflects...