where children still wander

‘Where children still wander’ is a work for flute and piano that listens for voices caught between memory and disappearance. It evokes ghost-children not as figures of horror, but as fragile presences—half dream, half mourning—still wandering through a world that failed to protect them.

The piece offers no fixed narrative. It may be heard as a Romantic elegy in the spirit of Kindertotenlieder, as a metaphor for the loss of innocence, or as a protest against the deaths of children in meaningless conflicts around the world.

The flute embodies a restless, disturbed spirit: haunting, fractured, unable to settle. In contrast, the prepared piano becomes an other-worldly, calming presence which plays a simple child-like tune—a quotation from a piece written by the child Mozart—which gradually comforts the flautist’s wandering voice. In the end, unrest gives way to quiet, as if the spirit is finally allowed to rest.

Recorded live at the Akademie für zeitgenössische Musik on 13.02.2026

Kosmos, Hochschule Luzern