✦ Nocturnes Beyond the Mirror
A piano cycle by Artur Tokhtash

There is a mirror that never forgets.
It gathers light as memory, and sound as breath.
Through it drifts the living shimmer of night —
a quiet space where everything listens.

Within this luminous depth, the winged beings awaken:
moths of tone, dragonflies of resonance,
small creatures woven from radiance and air.
Their flight is not escape, but awareness —
joy moving through form, existence realizing itself.

Sometimes, across that silent field,
a single wing touches the surface of water.
The instant trembles — light, sea, and being
fused in a single pulse of recognition.
Then the motion dissolves,
and the mirror keeps the trace of what it once saw.

The piano speaks in this language of reflection —
not about longing, but about presence,
about the bliss that arises
when everything remembers it has never been separate.

In this night, sound and silence breathe as one.
Music does not describe the world —
it is the way the world remembers itself in light.



✦ Ноктюрны за Зеркалом
фортепианный цикл Артура Тохташа

Есть зеркало, которое не забывает.
Оно собирает свет как память,
а звук — как дыхание.
Через его глубину течёт живое мерцание ночи —
пространство, где всё слушает.

В этом сиянии пробуждаются крылатые существа —
мотыльки из тонов, стрекозы из резонанса,
маленькие создания, сотканные из света и воздуха.
Их полёт — не бегство, а осознание,
радость, движущаяся через форму,
бытие, узнающее само себя.

Иногда над тихой поверхностью
однокрылое прикосновение касается воды.
Мгновение дрожит —
свет, море и жизнь
соединяются в едином пульсе узнавания.
Затем движение исчезает,
и зеркало хранит след того, что когда-то увидело.

Фортепиано говорит на этом языке отражений —
не о тоске, а о присутствии,
о блаженстве, рождающемся в тот миг,
когда всё вспоминает, что никогда не было разделено.

В этой ночи звук и тишина дышат вместе.
Музыка не описывает мир —
она есть способ, которым мир
вспоминает себя в свете. 

Still Air, Silent Flame

When the Wing Touches Water

The Mirror Sleeps with Light

Lumen in Stillness

Silent Union

The Night of Radiance

Wings That Remember

Wing of Light

Fields of Quiet Fire

Please visit www.themusicofalexthode.com for more information.

Repertoire:
"Butterfly" — Mia Makaroff
"Symphonic Metamorphosis" — Paul Hindemith
"O (Fly On)" — Coldplay
"Butterflies" — Thomas Bergersen
"One Day I’ll Fly Away" — Joe Sample & Will Jennings

Battery by Dan Richardson

Commissioned by the Pecos High School Marching Band (Pecos, TX)

The Monarch's Flight

Alex Thode (he/him) would first like you to know that not only is the “e” at the end of his last name not silent, but that he is also a composer and arranger most known for his work in the pageantry arts. He resides in Waukesha, Wisconsin with his cat, Buzz. An alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Alex composes and arranges for marching bands across the continental United States.

Alex's clientele have been Bands of America (BOA) Regional Champions and Finalists, UIL State Finalists and Area Champions, and WGI Winds World Champions, with Finalists in every classification. He has also had the privilege of having his arrangements performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Tournament of Roses Bandfest.

In addition to his compositions and arrangements for the pageantry arts, Alex also composes symphonic band and chamber percussion works.

In his free time, Alex enjoys watching movies and believing he’s a professional film critic, hiking and pretending that he’s athletic, traveling to National Parks — of which he’d eventually like to visit all — and acting like he’s Marco Polo, playing piano, guitar and a variety of kalimbas, and being with good company.

I am Artur Tokhtash, a composer and sound artist.
My music unfolds at the intersection of classical tradition and sonic art: preludes, improvisations, and electroacoustic structures are not genres, but forms of memory and breath.

For me, sound is ritual. Each piece is not merely a composition but a trace of presence, an echo of vanished spaces, a light from places that may no longer exist.
The piano, in my preludes, becomes a vessel — an instrument that carries not only melody but also the silence between notes.

My works do not function as background. They are spaces for listening, inviting the listener into a state where music becomes both signal and transformation.

New tracks tagged #BUTTERFLIES