Duration: 10-15 minutes, three movements
Inside of you is a forest, an internal world of hidden places beneath a canopy of birdsong. Here, you can walk paths familiar and unknown. Time passes strangely; the hours and seasons shift fluidly. The topography melts and reassembles itself, yet certain fixed points emerge, places that can be returned to.
While writing The Forest Inside of You, I found myself remembering places in the world where I experienced a sense of ecstatic wonder. Some of these places are gone – lost to time, out of reach, or changed beyond recognition – but their impact left an echo inside of me. When I find these places taking up residence within my internal world, they become spaces I can visit to rest and reset when things feel too overwhelming or untethered.
The Forest Inside of You, for flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, voice, and live electronics, was composed through a process of collaborative improvisations with the TAK Ensemble and contains many musical seeds generously offered in our workshops together. In this piece, there is no meter or exact duration. Musical time is felt rather than counted, with performers collaboratively deciding the speed at which the musical material unfolds. All of the electronics are generated from the live-processed sound of the musicians, echoing and transforming into a soundscape.
Recordings
Performed by Susanna Loewy (flute), Calvin Falwell (clarinet), Phillip R. O’Banion (percussion), Min-Young Kim (violin), and Cerulean Payne-Passmore (voice, piano, electronics) with Network for New Music:
Performed by the Temple New Music Ensemble conducted by Sepehr Pirasteh, with Cerulean Payne-Passmore (voice, piano, electronics) at Cybersounds 2024: