for piano and violin
June 13, 2025. The second day of war between Iran and Israel. The day might have felt like any other, if we had not been awakened the night before by the terrifying sound of explosions. There was nowhere to escape, no safe place to go; we had no choice but to stay at home, powerless to change what was happening. In that moment, the only thing I could do was turn to the piano. I played without plan, without thought of form or technique. I only wanted to hear the notes, even if tomorrow never came. Out of that moment came a question that stayed with me: “Is this how it ends?” Most of the work you hear now is drawn directly from that first improvisation.
Later, when I listened back to the early recordings, I decided to add the violin as a contrasting element set against the piano, and perhaps even against the sense of war itself. My main goal was to keep the spirit of the original improvisation intact, while reshaping it through new combinations and adding this contrasting voice.
This work does not carry any political message, and I have also tried to write these notes without political bias. The events I describe are not the subject of the work, but simply the reality I was living in. My only aim was to capture and convey my personal, inner experience of that moment.