Woven Fingerprints (2015)
(Double Piano Concerto)

We leave traces.
All the time.
Physical clues and words, thoughts and emotions.
Small pieces of information.
Everything we are in contact with is characterized by us.
Impressions turn into imprints.
Musical traces.
Traces in the snow.
Traces in the body. Of lived experience,
Political events leave traces in history.
The climate leaves traces in nature.
Traces that will be there for a very long time.
Traces of crisis.

I see the grand piano as a loom, and as the biggest string instrument in the orchestra. When two of these are combined it's as if a big woven landscape of threads reveals itself as a tapestry.

Woven Fingerprints is written for Ellen Ugelvik and Andreas Ulvo and they have been crucial in the process. Their fingerprints are very present. Traces of Ellen and Andreas are brought out to the orchestra in different ways.

All the material is in some way sourced from my intense listening to Ellen and Andreas’s playing. When I ask them to play a simple g, I can hear which one of them is playing. There’s something in the attack, something in the timing, something in the expression. I love the way they command their loom and find the combination of the two of them complementary.

When composing this piece, I am like Alice in Wonderland. I am wandering around, opening doors, looking closer at what I find - walking forward, going back - turning around - falling into a secret tunnel...

And like it is for Alice, the logic is not always very understandable.

The orchestra is revealing hidden sounds to admire, and the soloists are weaving all the impressions together.

- Therese B. Ulvo