Dreaming of Lions for guzheng and guitar (2024)

$17.00

Commissioned by Duo Chinoiserie with support from Arizona Commission on the Arts. Premiered Feb. 8, 2024 at Collin College Guitar Festival in Plano, TX. Approx. duration: 7 min.

The work was inspired by the 32,000 year-old cave paintings from the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, especially as described in Werner Herzog’s documentary film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

Commissioned by Duo Chinoiserie with support from Arizona Commission on the Arts. Premiered Feb. 8, 2024 at Collin College Guitar Festival in Plano, TX. Approx. duration: 7 min.

The work was inspired by the 32,000 year-old cave paintings from the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, especially as described in Werner Herzog’s documentary film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

I became aware of the Chauvet Cave art by reading “Everyday Life in the Ice Age: A New Study of Our Ancestors” by Elle Clifford and Paul Bahn (Archaeopress Publishing, 2022), a fascinating book about the lives and culture of prehistoric people. In one of the scenes in the Werner Herzog film, a young archeologist described the overwhelming effect of his prolonged exposure to the cave drawings on his subconscious mind; he said that for a while he was “dreaming of lions” every night.I thought it was a beautiful image, one that encapsulated the power of these drawings to take us back in time to the mysterious past of our ancestors.