"I am I" by Paolo Griffin

Paolo Griffin is a Peruvian-Canadian composer based in Tkarón:to/Toronto whose music explores notions of focused/unfocussed listening, repetition, and formal structures while maintaining a focus on close collaboration and creative spontaneity with the performers he works with. Paolo’s music has been featured in concerts and on the radio by the Resident Orkest (NL), The New European Ensemble (NL), Avanti! Chamber Music (FI), Duo Holz (CA), Freesound (CA), and more. Paolo is also the Artistic and Executive Director of Freesound, a Toronto-based performer’s collective that consists of a core group of the city’s most adventurous young musicians and interpreters of contemporary music.

NOTE: “I was on a walk by myself in the afternoon of February 1st. My neighbourhood in the West end of Toronto has a good amount of graffiti and public art, most of it very beautiful. On the side of a building I walked by, just off of Dundas St. West, someone had scrawled the words, I am I, in black paint on a white brick wall. Our Winters in Canada can be quite bright, since the cold gives away to near constant sun during the day. I thought the contrast of white and black in the glaring sunlight was very striking. After I began writing this short piece, I remembered the words I had seen written on that building (by the time I started working on this piece, a week later, the words had been removed). Those words became the text for this piece.”

Written for the Bahué Latinx Composer Miniature Challenge. Performed and recorded by Ariel Campos and Aliana de la Guardia. Audio and video editing by Jeffrey Means, Suonovivo Audio.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Springfield Cultural Council, a local agency that is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.