Duration: 35-45 minutes
Spiritscapes is a four-movement work for flute, clarinet, piano, voice, cello, and laptop, with live electronics. The piece grew out of collaborative improvisations with Laura Cocks (flute), Madison Greenstone (clarinet), and Tom Kraines (cello) with myself playing piano, singing, and controlling electronics. Metaphorically, Spiritscapes explores the idea of inner states as ecological biomes, traveling through I. Ocean, II. Tundra, III. Rainforest, and IV. Plains. Narratively, it explores a journey of processing traumatic experiences, redefining self-narrative, and reconstructing self-identity.
The notational language for this work is designed to balance maximizing performer choice and composer intentionality. The piece operates in a liminal space between improvisation and composition. Musical time is determined by the collective choices of the musicians. Much of the musical material develops out of improvised sessions between the composer and the performers and represents parts of the musician’s unique expressive vocabulary. Performers are encouraged to bring their virtuosity not only as instrumentalists but as creative decision-makers, living instruments with their own practice, ethos, and preferences. The piece acts as a site of synthesis between these different ways, gathered into a narrative that explores the fierce power of the creative mind unleashed.