I first became acquainted with Jen Wang's music in Darmstadt last summer. As a recipient of a "Staubach Honorarium", she had composed a new work for New York's excellent Talea Ensemble. It was a great moment in the festival from my perspective as it showed that even in a place as famously rarified as Darmstadt, the zeitgeist has shifted toward acceptance of a wide range of musical aesthetics.
I've kept an eye on what she's been up to ever since with keen interest in what's happening in the Bay Area. Jen is incredibly active as a composer and administrator as a co-Director of the Wild Rumpus collective and as curator at the Center For New Music.
A wonderfully sonically aware composer, Jen's sense for the development of sounds is on full display in this wonderful percussion quartet (make sure to click through to the second half):