Notes from the Temple at Garni

Notes from the Temple at Garni is an early work inspired by a visit to the ancient Temple of Garni in Armenia. The text, written during that visit, grew from the peculiar experience of encountering a place in which the distant past remains physically present: ancient stone and inherited history existing alongside the sounds, movement, and concerns of contemporary life.

The music explores this collision of time. New material is interrupted, reframed, and placed in conversation with a quotation from J. S. Bach, allowing music from another age to appear within the work much as the temple itself appears within the modern landscape. The quotation is not intended simply as an homage; it becomes another historical object—something inherited, recognizable, and newly encountered from the perspective of the present.

At its center, Notes from the Temple at Garni considers the strange continuity of human experience across centuries: the way places, objects, words, and music can survive their original moment and acquire new meaning through those who encounter them later.