Memory Music

This is a piece I wrote for my Nana, who passed away in April of 2025. She was the only person in my family who was a classical music fan besides myself, and since she passed away before my graduation recital, I decided to write a piece for six french horns dedicated to her memory. This footage is taken from the premiere, my undergrad graduation recital. Massive shoutouts and much gratitude to these fantastic french horn players who agreed to play this piece with me, I can't thank each of you enough for helping me honor my Nana. Since my Nana was an avid Wagner fan, I modeled her piece after Wagnerian harmony, form, and texture. The music contains a few key motifs that I used as building blocks for the rest of the piece. There are about six-ish memories contained within this one movement story piece, each of them take into consideration a personal memory I have associated with my Nana as well as any of the five emotions within the stages of grief. Each of the sections of this piece are not mutually exclusive, but breathe together as one whole unit - informing each other of their unique musical voice while using the same building blocks. There are moments of contrapuntal elegance, choral breadth, determined rhythmic drives, energetic freneticism, lyrical melodies, and weeping climaxes. This music is woven with about three or four common threads - if you decide to listen to the piece again, I hope you'll discover more secrets about the design. The motifs speak to each other without the bounds of time: the evolutions of each motif may be considered as precursor or ancestor to their future or past selves. I revised this piece from the moment I wrote the first few bars so that this effect could be felt. I like to think that the music is reminded of itself as it matures; the memories of its past self coloring its present and inspiring its future. I miss my Nana dearly, so to those who know how it feels to lose a loved one, I hope this piece of music allows the most meaningful memories of that person to blossom in your mind.