Scenes From Childhood

Few things could have prepared society for the global pandemic that gripped the world from 2020-21. From that darkness, however, there emerged numerous avenues for creative reflection. Musicians suddenly had a lot of time on their hands, and an opportunity to develop their art in new and ambitious directions. During this period, Portuguese composer Pedro Faria Gomes, whose imaginative and communicative music combines clear originality with a confident respect for tradition, turned to the piano. His initial idea was to write a variation on two sets of four notes. Faria shared the resulting movement with pianist Kenneth Hamilton, his colleague at Cardiff University School of Music. Hamilton was impressed with the piece, and a plan evolved to compose a more elaborate work. This developed into the ten movement, strikingly thought-provokingSuite J-the 'J' refers to Faria's daughter Joana-recorded for the first time on this disc.