Remembering is a Form of Forgetting for Symphony Orchestra was written as a response to the PhD thesis of Benjamin Smith (Remembering is a Form of Forgetting: Memory as a
simulacrum). One of the main tenets of this thesis is that memories can be unreliable,because ‘our memory (which is essentially a copy of the original) becomes more important than the actual event that took place’.

To represent this idea in music, subtle changes are set against a repetitive harmonic sequence. These nuances reflect the slight difference between memories, and the actual
events that took place, and how our memories have a tendency to change over time.