In the new 20-minute, single-movement concerto, Mr. Fujikura uses the ensemble to complement and enhance the shamisen, rather than as a foil placed in dramatic conflict with the soloist. But there are still connections to the traditional concerto form; early on, the shamisen breaks into a cadenza-like solo of dizzying rapidity that evokes prog-rock guitar as much as Paganini.

The piece, Ms. Heller said, is “a barn burner.”

Half a century after Takemitsu’s aesthetic crisis and two decades after the founding of Yo-Yo Ma’s transcultural Silk Road Ensemble, composers seem more comfortable using non-Western instruments — less anxious, perhaps, about the specter of exoticism. This has led to an exponential growth, driven largely by performers, in the number of concertos featuring solo instruments not found in Western orchestras. The didgeridoo, duduk, sitar and oud — even the waterphone — are just a few instruments that are enriching the concerto repertoire. In Sofia Gubaidulina’s Triple Concerto, the bayan (a Russian button accordion) colors the ensemble with a tenebrous rustle.

For Chinese instruments like the pipa, erhu and sheng, the number of concertos from the past 30 years tops 300. Wu Man, a founding Silk Road Ensemble member who has championed the pipa, a four-stringed lute, points to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1979 performance in Beijing of Wu Tsu-Chiang’s pipa concerto “Little Sisters of the Grassland” as the moment that whetted China’s appetite for concertos.

In China now, Ms. Wu said recently, “every player wants to play concertos” rather than give solo recitals. Ms. Wu has collaborated with both Chinese and non-Chinese composers in creating new pipa concertos. In her estimation, this diversity is a boon to the instrument.