Memoirs (2025)
(for violin, percussion and strings)

Reaching an age where most of life—perhaps three quarters—has already been lived, one naturally finds the mind drifting more often into the many layers of the past rather than staying rooted in the present. While writing this music, I noticed how the three movements seem to reflect the peculiar ways memory can lead us astray as we wander through what has been.

The first movement (Shimmer) blends the flickering sounds of marimba and solo violin with the slow-moving background of low strings. These combine into shifting patterns that repeatedly fade into still, frozen chords. Memories seem wrapped in a shimmering, idealised light—but when we try to focus on the details, they dissolve. Moments from the past float like islands in an ocean of memory, casting illusions like misty reflections.

This sense of searching and shifting continues in the second movement (Misty Mirrors), where slow harmonic developments give rise to contrasting chords in the highest and lowest registers. From this hovering atmosphere a solo violin melody begins to emerge, supported by the vibraphone played with a bow, while pizzicato passages from the orchestra provide an opposing undercurrent. The texture evolves gradually, leading the two soloists into more intense dialogue and thickening the orchestral fabric.

The third movement (Dancing Patterns) is built on short, repeating motifs that are in constant flux—unceasingly developing, yet leading somewhere wholly unexpected. The spirals of memory have carried us into unfamiliar waters, where long-lost images and forgotten scents suddenly rise to the surface from the depths of oblivion.

As in much of my work over the past two decades, a vectorial way of thinking has shaped the harmonic architecture of this piece as well. All movements are performed attacca.