Shelby Lock and the Venezuela Strings Recording Ensemble have joined forces on “A Matter of Time: Perseverancia,” a sweeping modern classical single that turns physical gravity into something buoyant.
Lock, a conservatory-trained pianist who runs Silver Moon Sound in Santa Cruz, spent years bedridden by Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, literally clawing her way back to the keyboard. Across the hemisphere, the San Cristóbal orchestra guided by conductors Raniero Palm and Jesús David Medina carries the weight of an entire community rebuilding amidst earthquake devastation. That shared defiance runs directly through the track’s spine.
The piece opens in total vulnerability: a solitary, tentative sequence of piano notes drifting through gentle melancholy, like someone gingerly testing their balance on fresh ice. Soon, the strings slip in. The melody begins to coil and surge, swelling into a cinematic, unapologetically grand climax where grief and stubborn will collide head-on. Just as the emotional mass crests, the orchestration cascades softly down into an exhausted, peaceful resolution.
It leaves you sitting in the ensuing silence, wondering: when the ground gives way beneath us, isn’t it strange how the instinct to build something beautiful still wins?
