I first met the composer Wang Lu on a warm weekend in south Brooklyn in the spring of 2008. The International Contemporary Ensemble, where I’m a pianist and original member, was about to premiere her “Siren Song.” It was by far the craziest-sounding piece on the program. “This one is beyond the beyond,” I said to one of my colleagues. 

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Jacob Greenberg, a longtime pianist for the International Contemporary Ensemble, lives in Berlin. He teaches each summer at the Tanglewood Music Center, where this past season he coached rarely-heard Ives...