Tiny Forests (2021)

Tiny Forests is inspired by the urban planning concept of breaking up a city's concrete-and-glass jungle with plots of miniature forests. While small in scale, they still adhere to the principles of how forests form and grow: a nourishing layer of soil, above which lies (in ascending order) the shrub, sub-tree, tree, and canopy layers.

Musically, the piece presents three tiny forests interacting within a city environment, and charts their growth as they extend root networks, to connect with each other, and eventually remake their urban contexts into an ideal "garden city."

[Tiny Forests is a Jury Prize winner in the Sydney International Piano Competition's "Composing the Future" initiative, generously supported by Creative Partnerships Australia; the work is also a part of James Palmer's “What is a Prelude?” project]

Performance history:

Houston, TX: James Palmer, Han Sol Jeong
Bloomington, IN: Lyndon Ji

Sydney, Australia: Andrea Molteni,
Denis Linnik, Jun Lin Wu, Pedro López Salas, Shunta Morimoto, Xuehong Chen,
Yuanfan Yang
Barthurst, Australia: Tamara-Anna Cislowska

Beijing, China: Xuehong Chen
Hangzhou, China: Jun Lin Wu
Changsha, China: Andrea Molteni