For violin and piano
Dedicated to Lucia Lin
Commissioned by Lucia Lin, Elation Pauls, and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music with partial funding support from the Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: July 7, 2023 – Lucia Lin and Iman Habibi – Tanglewood Music Festival – Seiji Ozawa Hall
Programme Notes
I am continuously fascinated by the immense knowledge and wisdom ancient cultures possessed, and the sacred relationship they had with nature. In Zoroastrianism, the of/cial religion of ancient Persia, humans do not stand above nature seeking to dominate it, harness its powers, or rule upon it, but we are one with nature and return to nature. Water is almost equally as holy and revered as /re. One of my Parsi friends told me the story of how her grandmother, when arriving at a river, would have a jar of milk with some sugar, rose petals and rice, and have each child pour a bit of the mix into the river as she prayed. The traditin is a culminating prayer of yasna, known as Offering of Water (Āb-Zōhr or Hōm-Zōhr), which consecrates, puri/es, and pays gratitude to water for the life it bestows upon us, by returning to it an essence from fauna and 9ora. The offering is given to compensate for human pollution, and used as an atonement for anyone who pollutes the water.
The same bodies of water that inspired such sacred relationship between man and nature are disappearing today through mismanagement and abuse. Having seen Isfahan’s Zayandeh-rud or Lake Urmia in Azerbaijan provinces of Iran in their magni/cent glory as a child, I am heart-broken to see them, and other lakes and rivers in Iran and across the world, dry up or become too polluted to use. This piece through its various movements, is an offering of water, a prayer, a reminder of our once sacred relationship with the giver of life, and a hope that we can return to water the same vitality and purity it bestows on us.
Recording
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