The soundtrack to the play “Instead of Flowers.”

This play was written and produced in a week by the theatre troupe Le Nouveau Rapport at Cornell University in May 1988.

The soundtrack comprises eight scenes, where the music indicated the beginning of a flashback.

I sat with my 12-string guitar during rehearsals, developing a leitmotif for each character as the actors worked on each of the flashback scenes, and letting these themes intertwine to mirror the dialogue. I performed it live on the one guitar, but added some additional instruments to the recordings to keep them interesting during longer monologues.

I distributed this on its own originally, and later incorporated it into the flower grandchildren’s lullabies.