Commissioned by Austin Classical Guitar and Florence and Charlie Mayne.
Memória is a tribute to an irretrievable past. Each of us are connected to our heritage by a delicate fabric of memories passed to us from previous generations and, with the passing of time, many of the threads of this fabric are broken. This piece is an evocation of memories which are no longer possessed, of grandparents and great grandparents and to the air they breathed and the trivial and profound experience of their lives. My mother ancestors come from Hungary and Memória freely employs elements of Magyar folk music. The Prelude is a nostalgic song that is an analogous to the memories we have. The Fantasy is the search, the wish and the desire for bygone experiences and lost memories, and, at the same time, a reverie of a world that has past.
This piece is written especially for my dear friends Randall Avers and Benoît Albert of Les Frères Méduses — for their wonder-filled hands and imagination.