This summer the Arroyo Ensemble (Natalie Brejcha; viola, Traci Esslingen; piano and Sarah Wass, flute) asked some friends and colleagues for pieces that they could perform in a concert up at CalArts. I decided to write them a piece for viola with a transducer attached, flute and harmonium (and humming). It was nice to write for these specific players. They paid such close attention to all of the details and their interpretation was beautiful.

Here is a link to their performance. There are many great pieces on the program by David Rosenboom, Ulrich Kreiger, TJ Troy, Aniela Perry, Bob Clendenan and Art Jarvanen. My piece starts at approximately 10’ into the video.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/117405277

Program Note

This piece is composed for the Arroyo Ensemble. The poem is written by Mark Yakich who is a professor of English at Loyola University, New Orleans. He wrote this for me to use in a composition in 2015 with the idea that it be read with long pauses between each word so that the overall meaning of the poem is not necessarily as important as the experience of listening in the moment. At the time that we met, we talked a lot about our shared experiences with mindfulness meditation and that heavily influenced the structure of this piece. The instruments follow the recording as a timekeeper as they move through the piece while the spoken words draw the audience’s attention back to the present.

On My Mother’s Birthday

My yoga master said,

Draw all your attention

To the matt…

As with all things

Be present…

If you are cooking,

Cook…

If you are reading

A book, read…

And so when I

Visited her grave

I didn’t bring flowers.

I got down among

The fire ants

And with car keys

Cut a pattern in

The grass

So that is looked

At the edges

Like frosting on a cake.

I stood in the center

And pretended to be one

Of 59 candles.

The ants began to bite

The ankles…

Higher and higher

They climbed…

And I fed the flame.