Still and Still
Still and Still (2024) • piano
Performed by Ashley Zhang
Piano Spheres Series
Thayer Hall, Los Angeles
Performed by Ashley Zhang
Piano Spheres Series
Thayer Hall, Los Angeles
Program notes for Still & Still:
While writing this piece, two events deeply marked me: the assassination of Alexey Navalny and the first arrests of politicians responsible for plotting the assassination of Marielle Franco. Both political activists – Navalny in Russia, Franco in Brazil – were relentless in their opposition against injustice, corruption and tyranny. Despite their enormous popularity and political prominence, their assassinations were overt, their perpetrators didn’t bother to hide. It was a chilling message: fascism is awake and hungry.
I wish I could believe in ghosts and believe that wonderful people continue to exist despite no longer having a physical presence. It would bring me a comforting feeling that I can’t get with reality. But my music can be delirious and establish ghosts, such as the never played, but always heard F and A chords (F for Franco, A for Alexey). Although these chords are not played as chords, they emerge, ghost-like, when the physicality of the hands of the performer is suspended: when the increasingly oppressive swinging pendulum (low-high, left-right) stops, we can actually listen to absence. Not silence, but absence.
In this piece I was interested in the emotional stretch that absence creates and observing what we do to ourselves when confronted with the emptiness created by a presence that is yanked from existence. I was also interested in the value of building stillness and internal quietude, amongst the external loudness. I wanted to create stillness so to listen to the gone voices that are still relevant.
While writing this piece, two events deeply marked me: the assassination of Alexey Navalny and the first arrests of politicians responsible for plotting the assassination of Marielle Franco. Both political activists – Navalny in Russia, Franco in Brazil – were relentless in their opposition against injustice, corruption and tyranny. Despite their enormous popularity and political prominence, their assassinations were overt, their perpetrators didn’t bother to hide. It was a chilling message: fascism is awake and hungry.
I wish I could believe in ghosts and believe that wonderful people continue to exist despite no longer having a physical presence. It would bring me a comforting feeling that I can’t get with reality. But my music can be delirious and establish ghosts, such as the never played, but always heard F and A chords (F for Franco, A for Alexey). Although these chords are not played as chords, they emerge, ghost-like, when the physicality of the hands of the performer is suspended: when the increasingly oppressive swinging pendulum (low-high, left-right) stops, we can actually listen to absence. Not silence, but absence.
In this piece I was interested in the emotional stretch that absence creates and observing what we do to ourselves when confronted with the emptiness created by a presence that is yanked from existence. I was also interested in the value of building stillness and internal quietude, amongst the external loudness. I wanted to create stillness so to listen to the gone voices that are still relevant.
Crumbling
Through
|
|
Though (2015) • bass flute and flute
Performed by Ine Vanoeveren
I. About Beauty (bass flute)
II. Watching (flute)
Performed by Ine Vanoeveren
I. About Beauty (bass flute)
II. Watching (flute)
Too big for the door
|
|
Too big for the door (2014) • double bass
dedicated to Matt Kline
dedicated to Matt Kline
Emptying the Body
|
|
|
|
Brice Catherin
Fendas
|
|
