for Soprano and Percussion, 2017 - 10”

commissioned by KITA Duo - Felicia Chen, soprano and Noah Rosen, percussion

As with any piece of music I write, there is a programmatic inspiration behind it. It is written with the memory of someone that I was very close with, but since written out of their life. Approximated Memories serves as a lullaby to that person, to which I will almost certainly never be able to sing to again. The inability to say the words, and the inability to place them in the right time, is the exact reason this piece exists. It also refers to the idea that any memory, however distant it may be in the mind, is recreated, not recalled. Any moment that exists in your memory is a present recreation of that moment, and it is shaped by the headspace that your mind is currently occupying. It is my opinion then, that you should be wary about reminiscing fondly on things that have passed, since your present headspace is coloring them differently than how they might have been originally colored. That is where the title comes from, every memory is approximated, because our memory is (usually) not photographic – we have a tendency to look at things through a rose-colored lens.