Nine Forgotten Variations (2021)

for solo piano

Duration: 22'

Premiere: September 10, 2022 @ Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY

Adam Sherkin (piano)

Commissioned by Adam Sherkin and The Piano Lunaire with support from the Ontario Arts Council.

Programme Note:

At its core, Nine Forgotten Variations is an exploration of memory and the way in which music can so strongly connect us with events, people, and our past experiences. Specifically, I wanted to capture the ephemeral quality of nostalgia and familiarity that is inherent within musical memories – aiming to recreate this visceral feeling within a set of distant and fragmented recollections.

Each movement of Nine Forgotten Variations is linked with a personal musical experience and corresponding work from the piano repertoire. With these connections, I wanted to explore how I could distill the essence of these pieces that trigger my “musical memories” and magnify these elements into fully realized aural landscapes. Through this process of thematic distillation and development, my hope was to produce a sense of déjà vu wherein a listener has that instinctive feeling of familiarity and knowing, without the ability to necessarily name the association.

In addition, this set of miniatures is very much an homage to my mother – a pianist herself – whom I grew up listening to, performing with, and with whom I formed most of my fondest musical memories. Many of the pieces that are alluded to in this set are ones that either she would play when I was young or that we have played together throughout the years.

Nine Forgotten Variations was commissioned by Adam Sherkin and The Piano Lunaire with generous support from the Ontario Arts Council.