Snider: The Currents

Description

The Currents was commissioned by the American Pianists Association for its Classical Fellowship Awards. I decided that my contribution would be something that challenges pianists to be at their most expressive, poetic, and lyrical, and rewards a-sharp attention to detail and sensitivity to pacing and narrative. The title was inspired by a cycle of poems, Unremembered, by Nathaniel Bellows. One line reads "But like the hidden current/ somewhere undersea/ you caused the most upheaval on the other side of me." To me this line is about the idea that our lives are made up of many competing, low-lying currents of emotional experience, currents which surface from time to time in ways that we can't predict or understand. — Sarah Kirkland Snider