In the peasant culture of Sicily, a great deal of importance is attributed to dreams. Time spent in dreams has always been seen as a privileged space for communication and exchanging information essential for understanding the “world of reality”. This involved messages from departed dear ones, unsolved riddles, or even numbers to be remembered for the secrets contained in them.

A morning ritual of my mum’s was to tell us about her dreams - dreams which would shape the day to come. My grandmother even told us her neighbours’ dreams.

This music was written at Palazzo Adriano, in Sicily, after days spent strolling up and down the paths of the nature reserve, feeling the wind and the sun, wondering at the flowers, listening to the babbling water as it trickled between the roverelle* like silvery fish. Each of these tunes unmasked itself to me like a dream unscrambled, a riddle,  a mystery whose deepest meaning was waiting to be teased out.  For me, composition is a space between reality and dream, where I wander in a state of consciousness akin to the « rêve éveillé » process. The title often emerges first, followed by a melody, a series of chords, a rhythm, a colour. Performing (and improvising on) this music is like wandering back and forth along the same musical tracks, discovering trodden paths each time afresh.  Music is about discovery and wonderment.

Pierre Vaiana

*Oak trees