Close readers of my tumblr will know that at the end of February, I caught the West Coast (possibly American?) première of Unsuk Chin and David Henry Hwang's Alice in Wonderland and had rather mixed feelings about it. Most of the negative ones were associated with the words, however, so I tracked down some of Chin's non-operatic writing and I am so glad I did, because she is a fantastic composer when not dealing with a deliberately nonsensical libretto. (I am also very late to this party; she has been positively showered with awards, up to and including the Grawemeyer in 2004, and her works are performed regularly by top ensembles around the world.)