Piano Trio No. 1: Gnothi Seauton [Know Thyself]

The Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself” (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν [gnōthi seauton]) is one of the Delphic maxims and was inscribed in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This served, perhaps, as a helpful bit of advice to supplicants before presenting their questions to the oracle. In 2018, I traveled for the first time to Greece, my familial homeland. This pilgrimage was one of exploration and of self-discovery – a quest for a better understanding of my cultural and ethnic roots, an attempt to forge a connection with two expansive family branches I barely knew. On the way to discovering the first of these familial communities, I visited the site of Ancient Delphi on Mount Parnassus. Standing in front of the 24-century-old ruins of the Temple of Apollo, I could feel viscerally the symbolic import of that aphorism – know thyself – that would have greeted me there in another era. This piece was composed in the days immediately following one of the most significant events of my l