Finding Beauty in Small Places

Breathe in…breathe out…joys, sorrows, beauty, and ugliness.

Breathe in…breathe out…space, quiet, stability, and hope.

In breath lies life and meaning.

In breath lies the center of ourselves.

Chester Biscardi’s Finding Beauty in Small Places is an invitation to return to the expansiveness of our own breaths. This aural meditation silences the endless outside voices clamoring for attention and ushers us into the sanctuary of ourselves. The notes never dictate meaning; they simply hold space for us to find our way back home to who we truly are.

Chester Biscardi writes this about the piece:

The solo piano version of Finding Beauty in Small Places (2023) is dedicated to my friend, the pianist and writer Rhonda Rizzo. It was originally commissioned in 2021 as a work for solo guitar for the guitarist David Leisner by The Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music. I owe the title to my dear friend Russell Merritt who listened to me describe how the work was evolving. How I’d been tied to the idea of “breath”—of breathing in and breathing out—as a way of shaping musical gestures. And how, when the piece opens up and tries to move forward, trying to break free, it always returns inward. He said: “It seems like you’re trying to find beauty in small places.” His words made me think that this work, in fact, is a timely affirmation of beauty and purpose in a changed and challenging world.

As a performer, the months I’ve spent breathing my way through this piece has changed me. It taught me to slow down. It taught me to bring all of myself to the notes. It taught me to stop trying to be anything more than what I am. It taught me that beauty can be found in the smallest detail. It taught me these things both at the piano and in the rest of my life.

But perhaps an even better way of describing it came from the listener of my premier performance of this piece. I played it in the home of a 92-year-old woman whose music tastes usually run to Cole Porter and George Gershwin and when I finished playing it, she said,

“I’m so relaxed. My mind is a blank. I didn’t think about anything. All the worries I have about the election and the wars in Ukraine and Israel disappeared. I’m completely at peace.”

That’s the power of this music. Whether in its piano solo version or the original guitar solo, Finding Beauty in Small Places allows us to let go and simply be. It’s an honor to have the piano version dedicated to me. It’s a privilege to be trusted to birth this music to the world.

For more information, visit Chester Biscardi

Piano version video recorded and produced by New Normal Studio