Composer Notes:
“I breathed a song into the air, it fell to earth I knew not where.” Ten years ago, I wrote a composition called Always Keep This Close with little idea of where it would go or what it would come to mean for others. To find that song living in the hearts of other musicians is both humbling and surprising. For me, it’s a reminder of how powerful our actions and words can be. Something that feels insignificant to one person can be life-changing to another.

While creating The Heart of a Friend, I knew from the start that I wanted to shape a melodic arc that captured the trajectory of both the arrow and the song. I felt strongly that the first two stanzas needed to end at a high point, preserving the uncertainty of where each might land. Only in the third stanza does the melody turn downward, revealing the rest of its path. I then combine these two halves to symbolically represent reflection—looking back on an action and seeing the journey as a whole.

It’s strange to think about sending this song out into the world. Who knows what it will become? All I know is that I gave it my best—and that is all any of us can, and should, do.

-Zachary J. Moore