It was the practice of Khöömii (throat singing) – following several workshops with Michael Ormiston – that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this “Songbook,” the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piec...