Abstract
'Meditation' was commissioned by Tessa Petersen and John Van Buskirk for performance in a concert celebrating the opening of the Chinese Gardens in Dunedin, New Zealand, 2008.
The piece takes an ancient Chinese poem as its point of departure, a text that focuses on nature and its relationship to humans. The music spontaneously expresses thoughts of nature and beauty, using simple ideas based around modes, repeated ostinati, and a mixture of long melodic lines and shorter motifs. Various timbres on both instruments are explored, and the pianist plays on the strings of the instrument with mallets at the beginning and end of the piece.
The piece is structured in 3 main sections: slow-faster-slow, and all sections are played without a break.