Journal

Before It Reaches the Surface

I started working on Silent, a multimedia work inspired by Forough Farrokhzad's poem The Wind-Up Doll, sometime around 2021. It was commissioned by Charsu Ensemble with support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

I was initially drawn to the poem's unsettling portrayal of a woman who can remain silent, perform the life expected of her, and gradually lose something of herself in the process.

The original version of A Girl Who Missed the Train was written for soprano and violin.

Arranging the piece for soprano, piano, double bass, and percussion changed the compositional question entirely.

Some passages are fully written.

Others exist inside boxes—musical ideas that performers can repeat, shorten, extend, or even leave behind. Those spaces were intentional. I wanted to leave room for the performers to bring their own musical instincts, respond to one another, and shape certain moments according to the performance, the space, and the audience.

There is a strange moment in every project that I have come to appreciate.

For weeks, sometimes months, a piece exists almost entirely in my own imagination. I live with it, question it, rewrite it, and gradually learn what it's trying to become.

Then the score leaves my studio.

From that moment on, the piece no longer belongs only to me.

I don't send a score because it's finished. I send it because it has reached the point where it needs other ears.

Every piece seems to reject certain ideas.

Not because they're bad.

They just don't belong.

While I'm composing, I often come across musical ideas I really love, only to realize they don't belong in the piece I'm writing. It's tempting to hold on to every one of them.

But over the years, I've come to think that every composition has ideas that belong only to itself. Composing is about discovering what this piece needs—and having the patience to let everything else go.

Sometimes I wonder where those unused ideas end up.

Some of the most meaningful parts of my artistic life have grown through relationships—with mentors, friends, performers, students, and collaborators. The projects I value most are rarely created alone; they grow through collaboration and shared experiences.

This week, one of my piano duos was performed by two wonderful pianists for children and families attending a summer music camp.

As I kept thinking about growing sprouts, I realized I didn't want the idea of growth to exist only within the installation. I wanted it to shape the way the music itself came into being.

The composition began with three seeds: recordings of hand weaving, the sounds of growing sprouts, and a Persian lullaby.

When I began creating Sabzeh, another image from Omid Fallahazad's story stayed with me: growing sprouts.

Before a seed becomes a sprout, it first has to let go of what it was. It breaks open. What appears to be an ending is actually the beginning of a transformation.

When you look closely, not every sprout grows at the same pace. Some reach toward the light quickly. Others remain small. Some never grow at all.

Yet none of them diminish the beauty of the whole.

When I began creating Sabzeh, inspired by Omid Fallahazad’s short story of the same name, one image I kept returning to was weaving.

As I talked with my collaborators, weaving gradually became more than an image. It became a way of thinking about the project itself. Together, we kept asking how this single act could shape not only the music, but also the movement, video, fibre art, and the experience of being in the gallery.

For most of my career, I've spent far more time creating than talking about my work.

Lately, I've been reflecting on what connects my compositions, teaching, and community projects. I've realized that they all begin in the same place: with a question that I care about deeply enough to live with for a long time.

I'd like to begin sharing more of that journey here—not just finished works, but the questions, discoveries, and artistic process behind them.

I'll call these posts From My Sketchbook.