Where can we go? Where can we meet? Where can we work? Where can we perform?
Where was one of the main questions I had during the pandemic. Thus, “Where” became my latest composition for String Orchestra.
For this work I was inspired by Ode to Humanity, a project-concept that the Alberta Symphony Orchestra created during the pandemic, with the purpose of celebrating humans’ strength and resilience, through music.
Recalling the pandemic time, the isolation, the social distancing, and that feeling of uncertainty, the search of a “where”, of a place where we could go, indoor, outdoor, stay and be safe, was something that struck me the most, becoming almost an obsession.
I wrote “Where” in May 2023, in one sitting, inspired on the spot. It is an about five minutes condensed piece, made of small sections, including a sort of development, a cadenza-like movement, and a Siddhartha ending.
I adopted a classical contemporary language, which deprives the work of traditional harmonic structures, with shades of tonality here and there, and in the Siddhartha section, which I so called to symbolically and philosophically represent a sort of kind, serene embrace.
State of floating, so to speak, and trying to find one’s bearing and how to go forward. Where to go, from the state we all found ourselves in. And then comes the Siddhartha: the human being who finds its way.
My 11-year-old son’s comment after listening to a recording of a rehearsal was: weird and creepy. Close to what I meant to say with my music indeed, although I love the melodic catharsis in the Siddhartha section, which is the ray of sunshine among the gray clouds, the hope we should never lose.
