Years of Pilgrimage is a set of original solo piano works composed by Belle Chen between 2019 and 2022. It is a dynamic journey across a wide musical landscape, with scenes composed on themes of travel, introspection, searching, and discovery. Inspired by Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, Years of Pilgrimage is a documentation of my evolving voice as a pianist-composer during the past 3 years.

In these works, splashes of jazz and Gamelan sound worlds can be heard in a curious blend with classical and post- classical sensitivities. In composing these pieces, the singular guiding vision was to explore how to paint and share feelings of various journeys evocatively and imaginatively on the piano. Some of the pieces in Years of Pilgrimage are homages to pianist-composers who have been influential to my journey to-date: Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Maurice Ravel, Bela Bartók, Felix Mendelssohn, Philip Glass, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Bill Laurance, Tigran Hamasyan, and Keith Jarrett.