Let me share with you a symphonic poem that I completed in December 2022, performed early January the same year. It is called “behind the dream windows”, this piece is dedicated to close friends Rebecca Young and Michael Sargent, as it is thanks to time spent withthem at their residence in their lush garden surrounded by woods in Saint-Lazare that most of the material for this piece came to exist. From both of them hosting a warm atmosphere and helping me set up to get beautiful sound-recordings to enchanting birding sessions and texture-walks where I got acquaintedwith all of their plants, from the most imposing tree to the most modest yet breathtakingly beautiful herb. Therefore, some of these dream windows I had in mind lead to their garden, which is a very elating sanctuary indeed with polenator-friendly landscaping under Rebecca’s hand and therefore stunning biodiversity. Other dream windows lead to my backyard at home. And finally, I inserted elements from a poem by Henrikas Nagys called “Summers behind the windows of my childhood”, hence the idea of windows.
Among plants whose names I know, I was notably thinking about lilac trees, hickories, maples, daisies, clover, ground-ivy, bee-balms, Hydrandjas, rhododendrons, and many native herbs, all from Rebecca’s and Michael’s place. I was also thinking of the evergreen bush in my backyard, and Henrikas Nagys’s lyndon trees which happen to be texturally similar to the apple tree in my front yard, so therefore kind of both places.
I of course included songs of notable birds, namely the purple finch, the mourning dove and the northern cardinal, all emblematic birds of my friends’ area.
Here is first a recording of an orchestral reading of the piece;
Now let’s hear examples of the bird species featured here, starting with a brief recording of a purple finch from my friends’ residence, from July 3, 2024. There is also a singing cardinal and a wondering chicken in the soundspace. The purple finch is the one doing the gurgling whistled warble .
3. Cardinal(fast upward glissando theme) and purple finch
As a mourning dove is featured in the piece, here is A conversation between two mourning doves from the same place, from July 7, 2024; enables you to here a diversity of mourning dove calls. A robin also sings near the foreground, and a goldfinch joins in later in the recording.
13. Two mourning doves, robin, and at one point goldfinch
And finally a monologue of a northern cardinal issuing a song theme that my invented cardinal does its own version of near the end of the piece. This cardinal, recorded on July 7, 2024, is joined quickly by a visiting wood thrush, who lives no doubt somewhere near the area. It is by the way exactly the same cardinal who sang with the purple finch, just a different song theme.
11. cardinal (fast chordal theme), wood thrush and robins (calling)
A great big thank you to Rebecca Young and michael Sargent for helping me get to such creative places and simply for sharing their beautiful world. May this continue as far as circumstances allow. In the meantime, let’s do all that we can to preserve and create such enchanting nature sanctuaries hand in hand with nature herself; these kinds of sanctuaries have devine transformative powers.
