Flowers (2024)— Score Video

Flowers was first imagined as a set of pieces expressing the “developmental challenges” of different life stages: learning how the world works in childhood, developing a sense of identity in adolescence-young adulthood, and coming to terms with death in later adulthood-old age. However, as these pieces developed, the project transformed into an intensely personal reflection on my own sense of self. Each movement imagines a version of myself at a different point in my life, loosely inspired by my own associations with a specific flower: the dandelions I played with as a child, peonies from the gardens I visit each summer, peaceful pond lilies, and the endless sunflower fields I imagine losing myself in.

Dandelions (0:00) pictures my childhood, happy and playful but distorted by the malleability of memory.

Peonies (1:37) struggles to interpret my present, incredibly vivid, chaotic, and immediate but occasionally revealing moments of coherence.

Lilies (7:07) envisions the story of my future, bearing all of my hopes and all my fears.

Unlike the preceding movements, Sunflowers (14:25) expresses no specific self-image. Rather, the work acts as a meditation, holding a space for every version of myself and all of the contradictions that come with them. It acknowledges the young adult I imagined becoming as a child, my current conception of self, and the version of myself that I’ll one day look back upon, and that they are all a part of who I am.

I cannot say that writing this piece has brought me total clarity, but it did bring me some measure of peace and joy. I can only hope that it can now do the same for others.

Matthew Osterholzer, Piano.
Recorded through the Michigan Recording Project at the University of Michigan.