Charlotte Foster
Music

Grieving mother’s plea to finish son’s composition answered

A grieving mother has put out a worldwide call for musicians to finish her son’s first musical composition. 

12-year-old Kyan Pennell passed away on January 31st after a tragic accident on his family’s property when he got caught between a trailer and a gate.

Kyan’s mum Amanda Brierley said he started learning piano just seven months ago, and unbeknownst to her, had started writing his own music. 

"The thing that has given us some little part of Kyan to hold onto is when I found this composition he was working on in the middle of a blank exercise book," she told ABC Radio Brisbane

"I didn't realise that he knew how to write music. He said he wanted to know how to get what was inside his head out on paper and he must have been learning how to do that."

Amanda said Kyan’s neurodiversity gave him a “superpower” to focus and learn more than 30 classical music pieces in just a few months. 

Earlier in February, Amanda posted a photo of Kyan’s unfinished work and asked other musicians to help finish it.

"This was just the intro, it is unfinished," she wrote.

"He was building up to a grand mid-section and then would do an ending but he never got to complete what was in his mind's eye.

"He imagined it to be performed by wind and string instruments, and of course his beloved piano."

Amanda said she has received dozens of submissions and hoped to collect as many as she could to help honour her "beautiful boy".

"Finding this composition was an unexpected gift from him," she said.

"Unfortunately we never got to hear him play it, so I want the world to be able to play it for me.”

"I just want to be able to change his memory from a tragic accident to something of beauty for others as well."

Image credits: Facebook / Amanda Brierley

Tags:
music, composition, accident, death, grieving mother