The Storyteller

Year Composed:	2022
Instrumentation:	piano
Duration	9 minutes

Program Notes

The question of exploring my own 'roots' through music occupied me throughout the process of sketching The Storyteller. Hours spent thinking about my cultural heritage yielded many musings on the nature of identity, along some pleasant reminiscences of my childhood in Hong Kong...but no genuine musical inspiration. It was only when I began to read the novels of Grace Lin -- an American author whose children's books are rooted in Chinese folk tales -- that I began to forge an earnest connection with my past. These books opened the floodgates of memory: I was reminded of my formative influences (video games, Terry Jones novels, the films of Hayao Miyazaki) and the particular stories they held. Above all, I thought of storytellers -- and my father, in particular, who for years would read to me before bedtime. Even before I understood the words, I felt the sanctity, and the magic, of the storytelling experience.

The Storyteller is a tribute to stories and those who tell them. It charts a journey of sorts, unspecific but universal, its lyrical narrative informed as much by the inflections of an imaginary reader as by the 'story' itself. The musical language bears traces of my earliest musical influences -- Japanese media composers such as Joe Hisaishi and Nobuo Uematsu, who channeled their own (often Western) influences in striking ways. But more than any particular style, I have tried to imbue this piece with a child-like sensibility, and a feeling of seamlessness that allows contrasting episodes -- a lullaby, a jazzy cadenza, a starry soundscape that transforms into a swirling storm -- to coexist in the same space.

Performances

• September 18, 2022 - Shoshana Telner, piano. The Loft, Cobourg, ON

Commisions and Awards

• Commissioned by Shoshana Telner.