What is it?

Reflection is a single-movement piece of six minutes' duration. It is scored for alto flute in G (amplified), piano and a small string orchestra. There's nothing clever or complicated about it. It's not even remotely modern from a stylistic point of view, but it is beautiful and quite a few people have said so.

From a technical point of view it is well within the capabilities of a reasonably proficient high school orchestra, although the alto flute solo part requires good breath control.

Reflection is without doubt the most unashamedly conventional and nostalgic piece of music that I've ever written. I didn't set out to mimic the style of anyone but there are passages in this that sound decidely like something written by Dvořák. (I can't imagine him writing a solo for alto flute, though!)

At around 9:30am on Monday 27th October 2025 I received a message from a friend in Cyprus. He needed six minutes of music to go with a particular scene in a feature-length film that he was putting together. I had a look at the scene in question and thought, yes, I know what's needed here. So I wrote this in about three hours, with a bit of additional time to fine-tune the result. Then, for good measure, I prepared a sheet music file, in case ... just in case ... anyone might ever feel it worth of performance. I'm glad I did, because two days later a flautist local to me did indeed express interest.

I'm always pleasantly surprised when anyone expresses appreciation of my music, especially when one of them happens to be the teenage daughter of a friend (so I must have got something right). There's something deeply nostalgic about this, which I why I decided to use the particular stock footage sequences that you see in the video above.

In spirit I guess this belongs in the same category as my Elegy for Strings, so if you like this, you'd probably like that also.