Anything that moves must come to a rest.
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I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid. Not that I was sick—hardly ever, in fact, and just the usual kid nastiness at that. But my parents always worked in hospitals, so I passed countless hours entertaining myself there on school holidays. I have many memories of long hallways, racks of patient files, and cold, dimly lit radiology rooms where I listened to the hissing and beeping machinery.
These memories rushed back to me when I first encountered Richard Selzer's "Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery." Selzer, a former Yale surgeon, combines his intimate knowledge of the human body with a love for baroque language and flights of fancy that are by turns grotesque and sublime. My piece toes a similar line between the sacred and profane, the grotesque and sublime—life, death, love and all the rest. The book is structured as a series of short essays meditating on a single subject (“Bone,” “Corpse,” “Knife,” etc.), that frequently veer into wild flights of fancy. My piece is similarly structured, in several movements that flow seamlessly into one another, connected by recurring musical and textual themes. Distinct characters and mini-narratives arise occasionally, with singers performing multiple dramatic roles throughout the work. |
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60' Version
February 25, 2018, 8pm Hot Air Music Festival SFCM Tonia D'Amelio, Justin Montigne, Samuel Faustine, and Sidney Chen, singers Eric Dudley, conductor |
30' Version
June 10, 2017, 4:30pm Switchboard Music Festival Z Space, San Francisco Tonia D'Amelio, Justin Montigne, Samuel Faustine, and Sidney Chen, singers Eric Dudley, conductor |
15' Version, as The Exact Location of the Soul*
March 16, 2014, 8pm San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble Justin Montigne, Eric Tuan, and Sidney Chen, singers Nicole Paiement, conductor |