The starting point for Notgnirrac was the visual and literary work of Leonora Carrington, the surrealist Mexican-British artist who emigrated to Mexico City in 1942. I chose Carrington as my inspiration for this commission as I consider her artistry to be both a path of self-discovery and a blend of psychological and physical geographies. In her visual work, and in her own words, “I am as mysterious to myself as I am to others,” I feel Carrington reflects inwards, toward her own identity to create work that feels personal but also emblematic of the art movement that emerged in post-war Mexico City. This, I believe this blend of personal and cultural also at the core of Mark's project exploring music from the Pacific Rim through the lens of identity. His project is titled "lutalica", a word first defined in the "Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" to invoke the notion of never really being captured within the narrow categories that people often use to describe themselves. Mark's project examines how identity is expressed in music, and how complex our understanding of identity can be when it is expressed through art. This wonderful exploration of identity in music has already produced a wide-range of outstanding commissions from composers in Australia, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan, United States, Singapore, and Taiwan, and I am grateful to add Notgnirrac to this important and growing catalogue of works for flute.

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