Patrick Yim's 'Bamboo Grove' Album Features World Premieres by Chen Yi and Zhou Long

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The full recording will be available on August 21, with a single release of Chen Yi’s Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds: IV. Flower Drums in Dance out July 31.

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On August 21, 2026, violinist and violist Patrick Yim will release Bamboo Grove on PENTATONE, an album of world premiere recordings created in close collaboration with Chen Yi and Zhou Long, two composers working at the intersection of Chinese and Western musical traditions.

The full album will be available on August 21, with a single release of Chen Yi’s Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds: IV. Flower Drums in Dance out July 31. More information is available here .

Recorded during a week-long residency at the University of Notre Dame in April 2024, Bamboo Grove brings together four works featuring Western string instruments reimagined through the sonic worlds of Chinese musical culture. Across the album, Yim performs on both violin and viola in works that evoke the guqin, erhu, pipa, xiao, lusheng, ancient bell ensembles, Peking opera percussion, and regional folk traditions.

"I have long admired the work and personal histories of Chen Yi and Zhou Long, and it has been a profound privilege to collaborate with them on this recording and to come to know them personally," said Patrick Yim.

The album opens with Zhou Long's Bamboo Grove for unaccompanied violin, a 2024 work commissioned for Yim by the University of Notre Dame and premiered at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. It was inspired by Ruan Xian, one of the famed Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a performer and composer who embodied a spirit of artistic freedom. He is the only member of the Seven Sages to have had an instrument named after him: the ruan, a Chinese lute.

Chen Yi's Xian Shi, heard here in its trio version for viola, percussion, and piano, is rooted in folk ensemble music from Chaozhou in Guangdong, her mother's hometown. The work, later expanded into a full orchestral version, was Chen's earliest orchestral composition and the first viola concerto by a Chinese composer.

Zhou Long's Tales from the Nine Bells for clarinet, violin, viola, and piano draws on a millennia-old Chinese legend recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, in which "Nine Bells ring with Knowledge of the Frost." The album closes with Chen Yi's Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds, adapted from her earlier work Sound of the Five for cello and string quartet.

1. Zhou Long - Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin (2024) [11:09] Patrick Yim, violin

2. Chen Yi - Xian Shi for Viola, Percussion, and Piano (1982) [15:15] Patrick Yim, viola Paul Vaillancourt, percussion Shuai Wang, piano

3. Zhou Long - Tales from the Nine Bells for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Piano (2013) [13:50] Patrick Yim, violin Kirsten Docter, viola John Diodati, clarinet Shuai Wang, piano

Chen Yi - Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds (2012) 4. I. Lusheng Ensemble [4:38] 5. II. Echoes of the Set Bells [3:53] 6. III. Romance of Hsiao and Ch'in [3:40] 7. IV. Flower Drums in Dance [6:32] Patrick Yim, solo viola Catherine Ramirez, flute Jennet Ingle, oboe John Diodati, clarinet Anna Marsh, bassoon Matthew Oliphant, horn Charles Roberts, trumpet Riley Leitch, trombone Paul Vaillancourt, percussion Paul Hostetter, conductor

Honolulu-born violinist Patrick T.S. Yim has performed on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Harpa Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall, Severance Hall, Orchestra Hall, Teatro alla Scala, and the Musikverein.

Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony and has performed concerti by Bach, Brahms, Bruch, Chen Yi, Lalo, Mozart, and Vivaldi. He has performed chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Emerson, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, and Ying Quartets; musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic; and principal players from the Shanghai Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Recent highlights include a Carnegie Hall performance with members of the Emerson Quartet as part of the New Music for Strings Festival, a collaboration with pipa virtuoso Wu Man in Lou Harrison's Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, and the premieres of two newly commissioned works with Juilliard Quartet violinist Joel Smirnoff.

A committed advocate for contemporary music, Yim has commissioned 70 works, including a body of work for violin with non-Western instruments, and performed new music internationally in concert halls, museums, galleries, universities, and festivals. He has collaborated closely with many renowned composers, including Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Ken Ueno, George Tsontakis, Bun-Ching Lam, and Juri Seo. In collaboration with the Hong Kong Museum of History, he curated a series of performances related to the Silk Road featuring premieres of newly commissioned works for solo violin.

His discography includes Gobi Canticle (Orchid Classics, 2026), George Onslow String Quintets Vol. 5 (Naxos, 2026), One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin (New Focus Recordings, 2024), New Waves (Albany Records, 2023), Digital Mist: Works for Violin and Piano (Naxos, 2022), and Memory (Navona, 2020), as well as recordings for Ravello and Acis.

Yim performed in the violin section of The Cleveland Orchestra on tours throughout the United States and Europe and has served as concertmaster of the Hong Kong String Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Orchestra Hong Kong, and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival Orchestra. A Core Member (Violin) of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, he was Assistant Professor of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University for four years and has taught at Stony Brook University, the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Department, Interlochen Summer Arts Camp, and numerous festivals. He has also performed with Ensemble Dal Niente in Chicago and on tour internationally.

In 2024, Yim performed the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long's Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin. In 2026, he will give the premiere of Zhou's Three Tang Poems for solo violin, strings, harp, and percussion.

Yim graduated with honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied violin with William Preucil and David Updegraff and chamber music with Peter Salaff and the Cavani Quartet, and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where he studied violin with Philip Setzer, Jennifer Frautschi, and Hagai Shaham, and chamber music with the Emerson Quartet. He is Assistant Professor of Violin in the Department of Music at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwclassical/article/Violinist-Patrick-Yim-Sets-Bamboo-Grove-Album-with-Works-by-Zhou-Long-and-Chen-Yi-20260604)._