Do the different musical traditions on which you’re drawing have specific associations in the piece — meaning, are they symbolic, or do they give voice to particular emotions? One imagines that you could compose in such a way that it creates its own sense of cultural geography.
It’s freer than that. I’m not approaching it as an ethnomusicologist. I’m just approaching it as a composer and artist. It’s more that I’m thinking about how I can use all of these tools to best tell these stories. And what is the most authentic and interesting way to do it. At the beginning, I’ll be doing this very traditional Javanese sacred dance called “Bedhaya Pangkur Tunggal,” but I’ll be doing it without gamelan accompaniment. I’ll just be singing alone. And that will be interrupted by a phone call. We’re going to use the symbology of the phone and then the police report from the accident.

Then I’m going to sing a samurai song — in the traditional way, but in the context of accepting this tragic news. And that moves into a Javanese melody that Joko wrote for us, that we performed with gamelan two years before he died; I arranged it for piano and [Korean] gayageum. When I chose that, I wasn’t thinking about Korean music; I was just thinking that gayageum would sound beautiful there playing this Javanese melody to express the loneliness after the accident.

Do you use languages the same way? Because they can also be seen as a set of tools that assume certain expressive qualities.
The sound of the language really changes everything. It’s another layer. For instance, I’m going to tell the Wehali story of Ati Batik in English and in Korean and then sing it in the original Tetum. It’s actually in Tetum Terik or Old Tetum. They’re quite different. I had this strong Korean melody and the rhythmic structure that comes from the Tetum language. It sounded so good to me, and I composed these strange harmonies around it. What’s always funny is wondering if it would fly someplace like Korea. So I’ve performed this piece there and a friend who is a composer heard it. I was like, “How is that?” And he said, “It’s better. When you sing it in Tetum, it sounds better than Korean.” [laughs]

It seems like the traditions you’ve learned become a kind of vernacular for you. At what point in your studies of a culture do you feel comfortable enough to work in this integrative, holistic kind of way? Is there a moment in which the foreign becomes a kind of native expression for you?
Fluency with the language: it all depends on that. If I feel fluent, I’m the most comfortable. So that’s a matter of time as well. I feel the most at ease with Javanese song and dance, mainly because I can speak Indonesian. I spent two years — that’s a big chunk of time — studying in Java. It’s so exciting when I actually think about it. Most of my teachers don’t speak English and, all of a sudden, when you speak their language, you have access to all of this knowledge. It’s what I tell little kids: if you learn one language that means you can talk to 82 million more people. You can have that many more friends. That’s the way I encourage them. Kids are always looking for more friends! But it’s true. My love for language is something else that fuels my work, and keeps getting stronger everywhere I go.

Jen Shyu’s Nine Doors, co-presented with World Music Institute and in association with Asia Society, will be presented in its premiere at National Sawdust on June 29 at 7 and 10pm; www.nationalsawdust.org

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Interview was condensed and edited. Lara Pellegrinelli is an arts journalist and scholar. She’s contributed to National Public Radio, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Village Voice. She teaches at MIT and New England Conservatory. Follow her on Twitter: @iveheardworse.