Cipher

Each letter of your first name and last name carries a numeric value — A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. The letters of each name are then summed into a single number. This follows the principle of gematria, used by Bach.

Encoding

Your date of birth is added directly: day, month, and year. The result is a compact personal code: one number from your first name, one from your last name, and three numbers from your date of birth.

Mapping

Troyanovsky then applies his own original musical cipher, in which each digit corresponds to a specific note. This translates the personal code into a melodic theme.

Composition

What emerges is a melody of eight to twelve notes — short enough to be held in memory, long enough to be shaped and recognized throughout a three-minute piece.

A theme — not a sequence.

The piece opens with the theme stated twice, unaccompanied, before it is developed through variation while its shape remains intact. The theme is derived from this name and date alone.

Each work is composed and performed by Oleg Troyanovsky. No generative AI is used.

Each commission begins with a conversation.