Over the years, knowing the composers' passion for music, friends and family had adopted the practice of bringing back gifts of music-related mementos from their travels. The composer now has an eclectic collection of instruments—some only decorative, some functional, all of them beautiful, and all of them charged with personal history and meaning. Souvenirs marks the first time that these instruments have been used for the creation of music. By sampling the sounds of these instruments (plus other sonic artifacts from the composer’s history), digitally manipulating the samples, and organizing them into a sound event, he sought to imbue ordinary, mundane sounds with a sense of the fantastical. The listener may notice the sounds of: djembe, ocarina, digeridoo, kazoo, rain stick, toy xylophone, tambourine, harmony singing, bamboo flute, shekere, vocal percussion, and rustic copper cowbell.
