Postcards for Piano
Postcards for Piano is an ongoing series of short piano pieces that I first conceived in early 2024. The premise is each piece represents a memory and place, capturing the essence of the moment with all the nuances our emotions are subject to. This results in music that is multi-layered and intricately crafted, with each element of composition thoroughly thought through in order to create compelling pieces of music.
The desire for this project is the ability in some years time to look back and have a bank of pieces that capture both key moments in my life, and my compositional progression through the years.
Zaanse Schans
The first piece represents a spoiled memory of a beautiful place. Zaanse Schans is a picturesque Dutch town, with many windmills and the gentle scent of chocolate from a nearby factory. This idyllic scene is fractured and shrouded by a falling out between myself and my holidaying companion that took place years after our trip. Whenever thoughts of this wonderful place fill my head, they are tainted by the knowledge I can no longer talk fondly of them with the one I shared them with.
Christmas Night, Mill Street
The second piece represents midnight on Christmas morning, 2023. A month prior, my Grandfather had sadly passed away, and the thought of facing the family for the first time without our loving patriarch was weighing heavily on my mind. So as the bells all around the Macclesfield high street struck midnight, my weary mind wandered through these thoughts, dazzled and disturbed by the ancient proclamations sounded around me.
The Old Leek Road
This piece is a memory of a country road, connecting the village of Gawsworth to my home town of Macclesfield. This was a frequently visited place during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, and quickly became a place of solice for me. It's rolling hills and distant reservoir provided the perfect environment for total peace and tranquility. The opening of the piece displays the main theme fractured, and unwilling to properly form. And just as quickly as the memory seems to fall into place, it returns to a state of unmoving solace, where the droning bass refuses to continue the memory, until the rest of the mind has no option but to give up.
La Femme De Galata
A more fun relaxed piece, La Femme de Galata is a piece written for a friend I met in Istanbul whilst traveling through Eastern Europe. We met in a hostel in the Galata region of the city and quickly struck up a friendship. We often spoke about our joint love of music and arts, and she asked I write a piece for her to play on the piano. From This, La Femme de Galata was born.