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Solo
2019
Piano
- Program Notes
- Flowers was first imagined as a set of pieces expressing the “developmental challenges” of different life stages: learning how the world works in childhood, developing a sense of identity in adolescence-young adulthood, and coming to terms with death in later adulthood-old age. However, as these pieces developed, the project transformed into an intensely personal reflection on my own sense of self. Each movement imagines a version of myself at a different point in my life, loosely inspired by my own associations with a specific flower: the dandelions I played with as a child, peonies from the gardens I visit each summer, peaceful pond lilies, and the endless sunflower fields I imagine losing myself in. Dandelions pictures my childhood, happy and playful but distorted by the malleability of memory. Peonies struggles to interpret my present, incredibly vivid, chaotic, and immediate but occasionally revealing moments of coherence. Lilies envisions the story of my future, bearing all of my hopes and all my fears. Unlike the preceding movements, Sunflowers expresses no specific self-image. Rather, the work acts as a meditation, holding a space for every version of myself and all of the contradictions that come with them. It acknowledges the young adult I imagined becoming as a child, my current conception of self, and the version of myself that I’ll one day look back upon, and that they are all a part of who I am. I cannot say that writing this piece has brought me total clarity, but it did bring me some measure of peace and joy. I can only hope that it can now do the same for others.
- Recording Notes
- Recorded through the Michigan Recording Project at the University of Michigan.
- Performer Credits
- Matthew Osterholzer- Piano