"I told the musicians that when they perform the three music pieces, they just have to imagine themselves being among snowy mountains, flowing rivers and lovely Tibetan people," Zhang adds.

The three music pieces were staged at one concert in Tianjin in November. This will be the first time the three music pieces will be performed as a trilogy in Beijing to portray Tibetan culture through multimedia, classical music, visual images and electronic music.

"Though electronic music is often associated with words like abstract and obscure, I am glad that the audience enjoyed the concert because they shared familiar sounds with the music pieces," Zhang says.

As one of the first students to be admitted into the composition department of the Central Conservatory of Music in 1978 after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), Zhang attended the well-known class of 1978 with classmates such as Tan Dun, Chen Qigang, Guo Wenjing and Liu Suola. Those musicians have become the first generation of Chinese composers to be recognized by the Western audience.