River of life was written as an homage to painter Mary Cassatt, her work, and life achievements. It is inspired by several of her paintings including Offering the panal to the bullfighter which with intense red color portraits a scene characteristic of the Spanish culture, a culture that is part of my own history. The rich colors and dazzling brushwork of this painting were inspired by the seventeenth-century Spanish painter Velázquez, whose “fine and simple manner” Cassatt praised. The title and general structure of my composition was also inspired by the words expressed by an art critic referring to Cassatt’s painting The boating Party as the “River of Life”, giving a philosophical interpretation to a painting that was part of Cassatt’s personal collection. I thought of this painting as the river of Cassatt’s own life, and her important work supporting women and their rights. There are some hidden quotations of different styles of music in the piece, as part of the River’s journey through different cultures, including sections influenced by Afro Cuban melodies performed with subtle harmonics on the strings, and a section that surprises us with brief European music sonorities, among others. The River runs through different geographic and historic locations, and the music ends up being not only about Cassatt’s life but also about my own.