About this Piece

Fighting to be seen for who you genuinely are vs. who the world imagines you to be can be a painful and unsettling process, particularly when you’ve been culturally conditioned to hide in plain sight. This act often requires projecting an inherent sense of independence while denying yourself the deeply human need to be cared for and can create irreparable cracks in relationships that once felt unshakeable. In I’m Right Here, I attempt to capture some of the unspoken complexities of learning to be more deeply and sincerely in relationship with oneself and with others, for better or for worse.

The piece begins with a suspended sense of time, the piano and crotales curiously shadowing one another while the flute insists on its presence with a repeated and increasingly agitated gesture. Suddenly the music seems to take flight with a frenetic ostinato in the piano and double bass against an anxious groove in the hi-hat. The strings attempt to soothe this spirited exchange, ultimately joined by the flute in a soaring trio. Their melody is an expression of yearning, perhaps for love, and is almost successful in its attempt to bring tranquility to the ensemble, until a piano tremolo appears as an anger bubbling just beneath the surface. This gives way to an urgently relentless section, where flute, percussion, and piano seem to be shouting against the wind rooted by deep pedal tones in the double bass. Viola and cello return once more with a loving duo that ultimately takes us to a gently pulsing closing section. The flute and viola exchange solos symbolic of an inherent sadness amidst glimpses of clarity and awareness, ending the piece in a way that floats but feels heavy all at once—the feeling of moving further away from someone emotionally, despite their physical proximity, but not without a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. —Nathalie Joachim