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 warmly welcoming me into their residence 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”.
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 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.
The first sound file is a recording of an orchestral reading of the piece.
Next, here is a brief recording of a purple finch from my friends’ residence, actually where it mostly came from. recorded July 3, 2024. There is also a singing cardinal and a wondering chicken in the soundspace. The whistled warble is that of the purple finch.
Cardinal(fast upward glissando theme) and purple finch
As the mourning dove is also featured, the third soundfileis a conversation of mourning doves from the same place, recorded this year on July 7. I chose this one because it enables you to hear a few varieties of mourning dove calls, and the birds are really close.
Two mourning doves, robin, and at one point goldfinch
And finally a northern cardinal issuing a song theme, still the same area, that my invented cardinal in the piece does his own version of near the end of the piece on the marimba.
Thank you again, @Rebecca Young and @michael Sargent, for helping me get to such creative places. Cheers to more visits, birding sessions and texture-walks when it’s comfortable for you.
