Death, dreams from the pentagonal garden

Instrumentation: alto flute, bass clarinet, violin, violoncello, soprano, piano

Duration: ca. 10 minutes

Text always offers a source of infinite inspiration in my music. Here, the poem that I have set, Death by the poet Bill Knott, is rather brief but is extraordinarily impactful. It caused me to reflect deeply on mortality as well as the various rites and ceremonies around what is often seen as a macabre, sorrowful, and slightly taboo subject. It is this, the pains that the living experience as a loved one passes on, and the hopes and joys of what may lay beyond for those who are gone that I have sought to express.

This piece thus serves partly as a meditation on death and the afterlife, and partly as an hommage to those who have died and have since passed on to what is hopefully a better world.

Performed by Musique 21 at Michigan State University, April 24, 2023

Asieh Mahyar, Conductor