Premiered by the Royal College of Music Philharmonic on 25 January 2024, conducted by Natalia Luis-Bassa. 

Winner of the 2022 RCM Concerto Competition, composition category. 

Program note:

"Living  four thousand miles from my home in Indiana, I sometimes experience brief, intense pangs of nostalgia and homesickness, prompted at random by seemingly mundane things: the comforting smell of autumnal leaves while I am out for a walk; the sound of train horns in the distance. It is as if I am falling down a well, a flurry of memories flooding my mind, an overwhelming desire to be back home at that moment. I become acutely aware of the distance between myself and my home, and the people there. It is no longer just a physical distance, however, but has evolved to be a personal one, as the indelible experience of living far from home alters one’s relationship to it. Home becomes a confusing source of both familiarity and bewilderment, revealing the chasm between one’s former and present selves. I feel very moved by these bouts of homesickness, and also feel a bit of pride as I am reminded of how much I have grown over the years. 

When I’m reminded of home is an attempt to capture these moments, zooming in on them, sitting with the feelings for a bit. The material is sparse, with a simple repeating motif in the piano (my primary instrument since age five) initiating a gradually intensifying series of waves throughout the orchestra. These periodic waves are coloured by focusing on the timbre of different instrument groups and pairings as I introduce more pitch classes into the growing expanse of sound. Eventually the horns (my secondary instrument) take over the piano’s motif as the orchestra swells and reaches its culmination in a widely voiced chord consisting of eleven of the twelve tones (omitting D-natural, so that the pitches D-flat and E-flat are unimpeded from grounding the harmony and resolving the piece)."

–JWG II

Streaming also available on SoundCloud: 

For more information, visit jgriffithmusic.com

When I'm reminded of home (2022)

commissioned by Wigmore Hall with the support of Andre Hoffman, President of the Foundation Hoffman, a Swiss grant-making foundation and the Radcliffe Trust. The first performance was given by the Elias Quartet at Wigmore Hall as part of their Bracing Change: New string commissions series on 11.05.17.

difference is everywhere

John William Griffith II is an American musician based in Amsterdam. His compositional output features works for chorus, opera, solo voice, orchestra, and various chamber ensembles. As a multifaceted performer, John routinely works as a conductor, répétiteur, solo pianist, and choral singer. He is a graduate of the Royal College of Music London (MMus 2023) and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (BMus 2020).

When I'm reminded of home (2022)

jgriffithmusic

Related tracks