Written for New European Ensemble, How to Identify Yourself… is an attempt at capturing and formalizing the raw emotions of frustration and isolation into music. New Year’s Eve 2022, I was stuck at featured alone with covid-19, my two cats and three bottles of prosecco. Misophonist as I am, I got increasingly frustrated with the ever-relentless, Dutch-style fireworks outside. Which I started translating with fists, forearms and full body weight onto my 1920 Ed. Seiler piano as a means to fight back against the big bad world outside that is very loud and very not me.

The impossible title is a sentence I had once found in the 2004 novel “PopCo” by British author Scarlett Thomas, with a few words shuffled around to fit my needs.

The piano, playing primarily clusters, is never allowed to play at the same time as the rest of the ensemble; the clarinet and flute are each tuned to their own pitch standard, making the trumpet sound out of tune instead; the scordatura harp has all C, E and G strings tuned 33 cents lower than usual.