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A personal note …

The title of this work directly translates to “tell me what it would be like”. I chose to name it in Italian as the work itself was originally written as a simple Italian vocal pop song that I wrote while I lived in Italy for three months in 1993. Besides the beauty of the language itself, the slow romantic waltz-y rhythm was directly influenced by Jacurso, a small town located in the mountains of southern Italy. Although the song has gone through various changes over the last 28 years and has become the orchestral work you are listening to today, it was very important for me to preserve its Italian origin, rhythm, and the main theme that accompanies the lyrics perfectly.

The lyrics and overall theme of this work are very personal as they are directly influenced by the tragedy my family experienced in 1993.

There’s much more to this story of course and this song is in no way meant to diminish what we experienced and continue to experience every day. It is however a snapshot of a place, a time, a feeling, friends, family, and the people surrounding me at a very vulnerable time of my life.

Dimmi Come Sarà is one of those moments where music allowed me to escape a little while also dealing with the actual experience itself. The melody, lyrics, chords, and rhythm exist because of the unique ‘recipe’ of events taking place around me and would therefore not have come to life without those events having taken place… although I would easily give it up for the opportunity to rewrite the experience that set it all in motion to begin with.

1993. It was the month of May almost one month following my sister’s death and we were staying with one of my aunts. I remember waking up with one recurring sentence in my head that I had to quickly write down so that I wouldn’t forget it. Once that was done, I suddenly had a burst of ideas that allowed me to complete the whole song within 15 to 30 minutes. It just came to me. I believed in what I was writing and every word meant something to me.

Dimmi Come Sarà is about feeling like you don’t belong anywhere, not knowing what it might be like after you leave somewhere or someone, and what it might be like to go back. What does the future hold? What changes? There was no plan to go back to Canada but there was also no guarantee that we could stay in Italy either. Do I get a job? Do we buy/rent a home? What if I met someone? What about my dad? My friends? School? Not having a country, a home, a job, or direction of any kind and worst of all, one less family member and 4 broken ones. Everything was on hold and I wanted answers so this was my attempt to ask for them. The lyrics are very simple due to my limited Italian vocabulary, and the song is pretty much a love song however the lyrics, the questions within, come from a person who had just had a life altering experience and who was experiencing confusion over something simple. While the lyrics are very simple, the orchestration in the instrumental version represents the complicated nature and countless experiences that exist ‘behind the scenes’ of a person’s mind.

Dimmi Come Sarà exists due to a real experience and while it isn’t a perfect work and could potentially be refined further, it does represent an important yet less than perfect time in my life and is a very important part of my story.

Thank you for the time you’ve taken to experience it with me!

⁃ Frank