Absolute Reality was composed following the devastating terrorist attacks carried out in the USA on September 11th 2001. The work is in no way an ‘In Memoriam’ to 9/11 but one person’s reaction to an event that shook the world, told through his music.

The title of this work comes from Howl, a poem by Allen Ginsberg. During the poem Ginsberg writes of many talented and promising young friends who were destroyed, either killed or broken as people by American society. Throughout the entire poem, Ginsberg only uses capital letters for people and place names. However, two-thirds through the poem he writes of one of his friends being “…run over by taxicabs of ABSOLUTE REALITY…”. It was the true absolute reality of 9/11 that led Peter Meechan to write this work commissioned and premiered by David Thornton in November 2001.