Program note

I’m endlessly fascinated by how art can inspire other art forms. Bouquet is a piece born from exactly that kind of cross-pollination — it was inspired by a stunning pencil drawing of a bouquet of flowers, created on dark-toned paper by Michaela Sedláčková. Her style feels wonderfully distinctive, at least to my amateur eye: drawings on colored paper that seem to sing with their own quiet music.

The moment I saw her drawing, I knew I had to have it. So I bought it — and as I looked at it, a melody began to play in my mind. I quickly wrote it down. From there, much like a wildflower growing freely, the composition unfolded organically, blending elements from various styles, with a strong leaning toward jazz and swing influences.

Structurally, the piece is cyclical in both theme and tempo. It opens slowly with an initial motif, gradually builds momentum into a faster section where the theme is momentarily left behind, then eventually eases back into the original tempo and revisits the opening theme.

One of the main musical inspirations for Bouquet comes from the orchestral works of Nikolai Kapustin — an almost forgotten master of classical-jazz fusion, whose brilliance continues to spark creativity in unexpected places.

In the end, Bouquet is my tribute to the beauty of creative dialogue between art forms — a conversation between pencil and piano.