This project, created as part of my Master of Music study at the Royal Academy of Music, is divided into three components: the live event, the website, and the dissertation.

The event is a 45-minute solo piano performance, combined with projections of self-portrait paintings, which some of you experienced on September 11th at the Angela Burgess Recital Hall. It centers on Spanish music and self-portraits spanning from the 16th to the 20th century, featuring artists such as Picasso, Dalí, Mompou, Soler, and more, whose works you can further explore on this website. By breaking these pieces into fragments and interweaving them into a complete cycle, I aim to express the idea of assembling memories into a complete journey.

As a performing pianist, I am very sensitive with images and visuals - I have specific images or movie-like story lines displaying in front of me while I am playing music. Because of this instinctive reaction to art, I am particularly interested in how to combine the two genres of art forms in order to create the “replica” of what is going on in my mind. The inspiration of the project comes from my daily life experience - after a long day with full of music, I would have illusions or dreams that the music and images are running around in my head, unbidden.

I find self-portraits fascinating because they reveal how artists view themselves through their artistic expression. Music, much like any genre of art, is akin to a mirror, remaining honest and clear, reflecting the composers’ thoughts and their true selves. As the curator and performer of this project, I want to bridge this reflective thinking through my performance and design of the event.

The full performance video is uploaded here. If you would like to read the full dissertation, you can discover it here.