percussion

in a field of stars

August 19, 2021

in a field of stars grew out of conversations with my friend and poet Robert Fanning. Robert and I had been talking about the extraordinary emotional affect of poetry even (or maybe especially) when its “meaning” is ambiguous or unclear, and drawing connections to music, where communication and meaning is often similarly slippery yet no less powerful—where meaning exists in a space beyond words. His poem Infinity Room leans into this expressive space and serves as the text for this piece. It was inspired by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s “infinity rooms” and Radiohead’s music video Daydreaming. Kusama’s incredible, immersive installations use mirrors and repeating patterns to create spaces that seem like an alternate, infinite reality. In Daydreaming, Thom Yorke traverses an almost endless series of doors, each one leading to a seemingly disparate space, a sequence of rooms connected only by his memory. Similarly, Robert weaves a small lyrical fragment of Daydreaming into a poetic structure that can be read horizontally or vertically—or even as meditative, self-contained mantras—creating seemingly infinite loops and interpretations.

in a field of stars, like all my work, is a snapshot of who I am and what I am thinking and feeling at a particular moment in time, but the context for this piece seems especially strange. A pandemic and enormous social and political anxiety and unrest have framed my recent experiences in ways that have deeply changed me. This strange and difficult time has reminded me that it takes time to process feelings, and, in the context of something this immense, I will be discovering the ways it has changed me and the world around me for a very long time. I think this piece is a part of that process.

Physical spaces help mark events in our memory—the smell, the feel, the look of a place is as integral to our memory as the thing we are trying to remember. It has been so peculiar to occupy the same physical spaces for such long periods of time—working, cooking, cleaning, playing, sleeping, creating in the same few rooms for months. As a result, in some ways, I feel like my memory of this time is jumbled, an endless series of experiences in self-similar rooms, and I cannot quite grasp its architecture.

The piece is divided into seven movements, each ruminating on a few lines from the poem that have been rearranged to explore different possible meanings. There are numerous connections between the movements—both lyrical and musical—and, like Robert’s poem, my hope is that the piece creates its own strange, infinite world, bending a linear perception of time into the more mysterious space of memories and feeling. Feeling requires vulnerability, so I want to share a few small pieces of my own web of meanings for this piece, although I hope that ultimately it leads you to explore your own world of meaning.

Did that happen last year or two years ago? What has happened in the past month? When was the last time? Have I done this before? Have I been here before?

There are so many. So many.

I tore my ACL. My sons said that I had “snapped the rubber band in my knee.” For months I had nightmares where the injury would occur over and over again.

In this room I got lost in the infinity of my mind.
The song Never Meant by the band American Football reminds me of college.

Multiverse—an infinite realm of being or potential of being of which the universe is regarded as a part or instance.

I cannot understand how they feel. I cannot see how they experience the world. But I want to try. I want to listen.

Shell and Wing

July 6, 2018

Lindsay Kesselman and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble | Kevin Noe, conductor

Program Note:
My sons, Izaak and Declan, have profoundly changed and shaped the way I see the world. I initially set out to write a collection of vignettes about them, about childhood—a way to capture the beautiful, tender, and often silly and hilarious moments of their lives, but, my plans suddenly shifted after yet another all too common incidence of violence against children. In response to this violence, I felt compelled to respond in some way—to respond to my fear of sending my sons out into this violent world. Shell and Wing emerged as a collaboration and a response to these parental impulses with my friend and fellow father, poet Robert Fanning. Robert’s response to our conversation—a poem in two stanzas—gave voice to the ambiguity, the conflict I feel as a parent—this profound longing to protect my children coupled with the knowledge that I must also let them go.

The first poem is in a parent’s voice—my voice—and the second poem is in a child’s voice—that of my sons. Musically, the first movement is a sort of fragmented lullaby interwoven with a distorted memory of Robert Schumann’s Träumerei(Dreaming/Reverie) from Kinderszenen(Scenes from Childhood). Schumann’s harmonies are pulled and stretched until they resemble only a distant echo of the original. The second movement begins with solo piano, distant and aching that transforms into a quiet, dream-like duet for the soprano and vibraphone. The child’s song grows and builds, underpinned by a chaconne—a repeated chord progression—and eventually becomes the same song heard in the first movement, the parent’s song.

Read about Robert Fanning’s experience collaborating on this piece.

SHELL AND WING

by Robert Fanning

I. SHELL
I hold you, breath beneath my skin, a nest of flesh. No world can break
you here. Shadows feather the shell. If you fly, you’ll never go far.
I dream my body border and sky, my heart an aviary. In my sleep, you wake.
I hold you. Breathe a nest beneath my skin, flesh no world can break.
Now, the season’s errant and astray; coiled rage hisses to strike. Hate leaks
into vine and branch, river and vein. So, song in me, rise. May death take no air
I hold. You, my breath beneath. My skin a nest of flesh. No world can break
you. Here, shadow. Feather, never go. I’m a shell if you fly. Fly far.

II. WING
You dream you hold me in your nest of breath. Before they lifted me
from mingled blood, I rose, a song within your feathered sleep
for centuries. Your veined branches mapped my lidded eyes. A tree
you dream you hold. In your nest of breaths before me. They lifted me
from you to veil the sky. I flew through your death in learning to fly.
No world bears us. Though we slip our nets of wing and flesh, may love keep
you, this dream you hold in your nest of breath, before they lift me
from mingled blood. I wrote your song within. My feathered sleep.

Ferrum

November 11, 2017

davebied · Ferrum

^{Michigan State University Percussion Ensemble}

Program Note:

This piece comes from two kinds of music that I love: heavy metal and Indian Carnatic music. I spent a summer in Mysore, India studying Carnatic music—specifically, the mridangam, a hand drum which serves as the primary rhythmic instrument in the Carnatic music ensemble. My favorite metal band is Meshuggah, a Swedish group known for its use of incredibly intricate and virtuosically executed rhythmic material. For me, although vastly different in many ways, Meshuggah and Carnatic music are deeply connected in their use of complex rhythmic cycles. The title for this work, Ferrum, is the latin word for iron—a heavy metal—and also references the ferric oxide (rust) tuning paste used on the drum heads of the mridingam, which gives the instrument its distinct metallic timbre.

Stomp

March 14, 2008

davebied · Stomp (chamber ensemble)

^{Conducted by David Biedenbender}

Program Note:

The title, Stomp, refers to a heavy, syncopated dance with some serious attitude—picture a Saturday night jam session—in a barn—featuring a crazed country fiddle band and Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers.