Mirage (2018)
6mins
pn
Shortlisted during the 2018 Bartok World Composition Competition
Premiered 27 November 2019 by Alex Raineri during the 2019 Brisbane Music Festival
Initially, I was inspired to write a piece about perception: what we perceive to be true or untrue, real or unreal. This idea eventually took a narrative form, and I began to imagine a man lost in a desert. On the verge of death, a shimmering city appears before him – or perhaps it is a caravan, or an oasis – and he madly runs towards it. Finding nothing where there should be something, the man succumbs to his fate.
For me, Mirage represents a changing state of my being: “challenging what could be” has become “accepting what is” – and I believe such a mindset is important, particularly in our world. I think idealism died with the turn of the century; too many (including myself) hope to resurrect it. And yet, just like the character within Mirage, thought and action precede realisation, and I am not for a moment suggesting we sacrifice this journey, a journey fundamental to our very existence.
