AIŌN (2018)
(AIŌN Symphony)

AIŌN is a symphony-scale orchestral work in three movements, titled Morphosis, Transcension and Entropia.

AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension. Disorienting at first, you realize that time extends in all directions simultaneously and that whenever you feel like it, you can access any moment, even simultaneously. As you learn to control the journey, you find that the experience becomes different by taking different perspectives - you can see every moment at once, focus on just some of them, or go there to experience them. You are constantly zooming in and out, both in dimension and perspective. Some moments you want to visit more than others, noticing as you revisit the same moment, how your perception of it changes. This metaphor is connected to a number of broader background ideas in relation to the work: How we relate to our lives, to the ecosystem, and to our place in the broader scheme of things, and how at any given moment we are connected both to the past and to the future, not just of our own lives but across - and beyond - generations.

As with my music generally, the inspiration behind AIŌN is not something I am trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about”, as such – it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece.

Programme note by Anna Thorvaldsdottir