The Boccaccio Project: Sequestered Thoughts by Damien Sneed, performed by Jeremy Jordan

Описание: Concerts from the Library of Congress developed The Boccaccio Project to provide some artistic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten composers were commissioned to write brief solo works, with the remotely recorded pieces premiered online in June 2020. Composer Damien Sneed was paired with pianist Jeremy Jordan to write a new work for solo piano, entitled Sequestered Thoughts, which premiered on June 15, 2020.

From the composer:
Sequestered Thoughts was inspired by spending many days alone in solitude during the COVID-19 pandemic of Spring 2020. It opens with a virtuosic fluttering in the right hand juxtaposed against a strong and determined left-hand motif speaking to the many meandering thoughts that come to one when they find themselves devoid of human interaction and fellowship. Then a motif comes out of the left hand representing the inquisitive longing for things to shift to a new normal while the right hand plays octaves mirroring the monotony of days running together and weeks running into months. Then with the feeling of inward searching of the soul, a chromatic scale cascades downward into a strong-willed determination to survive in resilient hope for the future upward into keys effervescently peering upward in expectation.
~Damien Sneed

From the performer:
Sequestered Thoughts was a most wonderful piece of music to study and record. Mr. Sneed displayed a good deal of harmonic and thematic ingenuity and managed to craft all of it into a work that expertly captures the spirit of this project. The circumstances under which this project was created make it that much more remarkable, and it served as a creative inspiration for my own continued artistic endeavors.
~ Jeremy Jordan