NowState

NowState is a series of three short pieces for solo piano, commissioned by the Park Lane Group and first performed in the Park Lane Group Young Artists Concert at Purcell Room (Queen Elizabeth Hall) on 18 January 2019. The concert was part of the SoundState festival and pianist Phillip Leslie gave the premiere.

I. Aporia

The piece's's title comes from the Greek word aporia, meaning difficulty, perplexity. From aporos, impassable. From a- + poros, passage.

II. As we turn into machines

This piece is an exercise over the idea of turning a human being into a machine; the idea of mechanization and fusion between man and machine. The musical world builds on slow harmonic transformation and there is a sense of constrained freedom. There is also a sense of inevitability, of gradually coming back to what defines something; an inescapable gravitation.

III. Digital (tribute to Steve Reich)

This title alludes to the very coordinated movement of the pianist's fingers (the word digital can refer to fingers) but also to the characteristics of the digital world. Musically, I tried to explore the idea of turning the piano into a synthesizer.

November, 2018