Clockwork (2025)
For pierrot sextet (9’)
Written for Collage New Music
Clockwork explores the delicate process of assembling and disassembling memory. Much like a clock or any other instrument that marks time, we construct the idea of home and our relationships from countless components. Each piece is constantly shifting, being taken apart, and pieced back together. Life and home demand constant attention. Maintaining equilibrium means we must repeatedly take things apart to understand where maintenance is needed, then reassemble them with new insight. Yet, every time a gear or cog is replaced, the machine continues to function, but it is never quite the same. With each repair, the clock evolves in small ways. It might still keep perfect time, but the finish may change color, the glass may cloud, or the weight may shift... perhaps after that time you swapped a fine brass gear for one of a cheaper material. Decades afterward, the clock your grandfather gave you may look almost unrecognizable. To you, it remains the same. Each replacement part, every moment spent polishing the brass, every anxious glance as you waited for the chime to tell you to take your kids to school, is a memory layered into this ever-evolving machine. Somehow, despite all the changes, it’s still home.
Home is an ever-evolving concept. To resist change is like refusing to maintain your clock. Eventually, the mechanism falters, time slips, and you end up running through your morning routine, blissfully unaware you’re already ten minutes late for work. The desire to keep things as they are can be comforting, but it comes at the risk of stagnation. Keeping equilibrium is not about preventing change, but about tending to the shifts that inevitably occur. Home will change, friends will grow and drift, and we must always be willing to recalibrate. In this ever-evolving process, we must not find solace in the perfection that once was, but in the care and memories we hold going forward.