Hyo-shin Na – Many Paradises (for violin, cello & piano)

About a year ago, I came across a very small book entitled “28 Paradises”, consisting of 28 paintings by Dominique Zerfuss (b. 1951). Each painting is accompanied by a poem written by Patrick Modiano, her husband (b. 1945) (Nobel Prize in Literature, 2014). 5 sets from these 28, at times rather enigmatic, painting/poems became a beginning point of my work “Many Paradises”.

From “28 Paradises”
by Patrick Modiano

1. And the roses growing without thorns
2. I had lived my life
   I no longer cared about the past
   Even less about the future
3. Meet me at the lakeshore
   At sunrise
   You will find once more what you’ve lost
4. A voice murmured in my ear
   Look down there
   The castle and the waterfall
   If you cross the field
   You will hear
   The musics of silence
5. The large window looked out over the carousel of the king’s stables
   And onto the clock always showing the same time
   That of youth and eternal noon
   During the day
   The Lilliputian painted her paradises
   And I
   Next to her
   Wrote a poem

“And the roses growing without thorns” – this one sentence, in particular, changed my attitude towards the world and made me hear new sounds that I’d never imagined before.

This work was composed with the generous support of the Elaine and Richard Fohr Foundation.