Before I started playing the piano, the CD player was the main source of music in our home. It was a small box with two surprisingly loud loudspeakers, brand “Panasonic” and it had a remote control that I, to this day, haven’t learnt how to use. I never really needed to as my favorite spot to sit was on the floor, right next to the player, where the CD shelf was. At weekends, when the whole family would be at home, we would listen to Beethoven’s Symphonies and various piano concerti, and I would be fascinated by all the colours of the CD boxes. A few years later, the names of the interpreters started making more sense to me, these people became my heroes and I would wonder what it would take to actually have the chance to record a CD.
Towards the end of 2019 I felt I was ready to give it a try. In December I had coffee with my friend Dominykas Girčius, who is a wonderful pianist and record-producer and that I have worked with many times during our studies, and we agreed what our recording dates and the program would be. In the evening of February 29th 2020 we entered the hall, we had to go out already the following afternoon and that was it – we had to make it a wrap. Far from the ideal debut-CD scenario. Little did we know that things would become even more challenging – some two weeks later, just as we were about to start putting it all together, the pandemic was declared, and we had to put the project on hold. We could only pick it up at the end of the Summer and the post-production of the album was completed early in 2021.
A phone call to a dear friend of mine, who I met through the most incredible twist of fate, was enough to inspire the artwork that is the cover of the CD. Jean-Sebastien Tinguely is an incredibly gifted visual artist, whose family name has a serious artistic pedigree in Switzerland, and he happens to have been my first flat-mate in Zurich. We agreed that the cover should be made using the collage technique, he asked me to play the CD for him and to provide him with a few personal items that make my life in Zurich what it is. The next phone call we had was just for me to tell him that he outdid himself – I invite you to explore around the cover and the CD itself and try to find all the references: there is the music score, the costume of the unhatched chick, the logo of the Zurich Public Transportation System, and many more.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the people that enabled all of this: to Dominykas Girčius, for his patience and dedication during the production of the CD, to Jean-Sebastien Tinguely, for the incredible artwork he created, to professor Konstantin Scherbakov, for the four years of thorough mentorship, his belief in me and everything that he taught me, and that can hopefully be heard in my playing, and to my parents Sanja and Milan, for the immense support in everything I do, especially when I doubt whether any of it makes sense.