I write music as an ends in itself, as a means to both express and uncover those often concealed and complex manifestations of the human condition. That is to uncover even ever so slightly more about ourselves. Tchaikovsky touched upon this in an 1877 letter responding to Nadezhda von Meck who had compared music with intoxication.

In his disagreement he replied, ”Music is not a deception but a revelation, and its triumphant strength lies precisely in its ability to reveal aspects of beauty to us which are inaccessible in any other sphere, and whose contemplation is not temporary but forever reconciles us with life.”

Art like science is fundamentally a cognizing of life, of societies ever changing relations and developments as it drags itself from the domination of nature and other laws over itself into the sphere of understanding and changing matter, nature, for itself. In so doing, changing itself in the process. I see music and art arising from a sensitive, penetrating, discerning eye which seeks to be conscious of and empathetic to the entirety of this history as well as and in relation to the totality of life in this interconnected contradictory world.