Original Composition 2021 Conversation Suite
The conversation suite is a set of 4 pieces for percussion duo and electronics. These pieces are my reflection on how digital sounds and digital devices have become the companion to our every move and how we use them as a metric for our interactions.
I. Prelude: a psalm-like, analog nostalgic reflection.
II. Conversation: A fractured conversation and the different emotional states of three perspectives. The perspective of a person witnessing an argument and the perspectives of two people who are not really listening to each other, but rather listening to themselves.
III. I heard it on the news: Influenced by our digital consumption of news from an ever increasing and demanding splintered media, our conversations have changed in tone and objectivity. Modern interactions are increasingly mainly informed by how we experience each other through digital technology.
IV. Postlude: A faster, busier and no longer psalm-like electronic nostalgic reflection.
I. Prelude: a psalm-like, analog nostalgic reflection.
II. Conversation: A fractured conversation and the different emotional states of three perspectives. The perspective of a person witnessing an argument and the perspectives of two people who are not really listening to each other, but rather listening to themselves.
III. I heard it on the news: Influenced by our digital consumption of news from an ever increasing and demanding splintered media, our conversations have changed in tone and objectivity. Modern interactions are increasingly mainly informed by how we experience each other through digital technology.
IV. Postlude: A faster, busier and no longer psalm-like electronic nostalgic reflection.
Original Composition 2020 Monet's Water Triptych
This work is based on the shapes and colors of Monet's painting Water Lilies (Agapanthus) as well as a personal environmental concern. At an art exhibition I learned how WWI affected Monet's works, and how his worries were expressed in the color choices of his paintings. At that time I was training as a piano performer and just dipping my toes into the idea of composition. I found those days to be difficult. My reality of spending all my time practicing gorgeous melodies so far away from home, didn't fit well with my other reality. The one where I was very worried that an international gold mining company could potentially poison the drinking water in the province I grew up in. Writing this piece was a way to make sense to my two realities. Even though I was far away, I could contribute to the conservation conversation through art activism, and fight back by writing a piece that celebrates the theme of water.
Promo clip
Inspiration behind the piece Monet's Water Triptych
The creation of this piece was based on two formative experiences in my life: 1) my own performance of Franz Liszt’s Sposalizio and 2) my viewing of Claude Monet’s paintings Water Lilies (Apaganthus) at an exhibition. The theory of how WWI affected Monet’s paintings in addition to my readings of the painting that inspired Liszt’s Sposalizio, led me to do further research into other composers who were similarly inspired by paintings. Many of these works contained criticism to important events of their day and I, in a similar manner wanted to give a statement about our societies’ attitude towards water and climate change by writing a piece that celebrates the theme of water. It is my wish for this piece to add to the conversation through a positive attitude, that we must protect nature. This piece is dedicated to my hometown and to all environmentalists who successfully won a battle agains a foreign mining company that wanted to open a gold mine in my home state of San Carlos.
Original Composition 2016
Reminiscence
Audio clip "El Sueño" Original Composition 2016
This piece is about ocarinas found in Costa Rica that date from 500 BCE to 1550 AD. In 2016 I read about a museum composition competition called The Metaphor of Sounds. The guideline was to utilize a bank of sounds from these instruments and make them come to life for a museum exhibit about them. The museum wanted their stories to be told in their language. The composers in the competition were taught about the function of music in the pre-Columbian era, and how the ocarinas had a crucial role in society. They were utilized for birth and funerary rituals as well as for military purposes; tribes would play them when crossing the jungle, to alert other tribes of their passage and avoid a battle. The name of this piece is El Sueño, which means dream in Spanish. I thought what a crazy cool dream this is, to be making music from these instruments, somebody else's ancient instruments, and for these ocarinas to be both our language through history, space and time.