UMcertain
May 27, 2020, 03:54 PM
Piece based on the Statue of Liberty by Bev Boyd.
"It moved to me to think about emigration to the United States from the perspectives of two English emigrants and one native New Yorker, whose ancestors fled Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
"Each voice describes a different aspect of the immigrant experience and it got me thinking how hard it can be for societies, and individuals, to marry their wide ranging notions of liberty, opportunity and identity. To stay or go, to commit to a new world or not, seemed part of all the experiences in the voices you hear in the piece. ' So the word 'um' was what I wanted to highlight. I wanted the feeling of 'um' of hesitancy and uncertainty and conflictedness, to be heard. I felt it deserved recognition. I wanted to give it music.
"I noticed how these three Americans had all known conflicted feelings in the process of making sense of their own or their families' moves. Ambivalence seemed to be missing in the Emma Lazarus poem, which has the feel of trailblazing optimism. Trailblazing doesn't always recognise the deliberating and the wondering that may go with wondering whether it was worth it. 'Um' is the word that allows us time to find our way around a sentence as we try to work out the worth of an action, or idea, or to recall our own, or another's, personal history. So I wanted to highlight the 'um' in the experiences described in my piece. The word seem to capture a feeling at large in the US today, in relation to immigration.
"I mixed in some sounds of traditional American and European instruments - harmonica, mandolin and accordion. The mandolin may sound playful and tentative, because I am finding my way round it, feeling like a new arrival when I try to play it. The first voice in my piece is an English American, living in Denver. The mandolin and harmonica remind me of the bluegrass heritage of that state.
"The accordion acknowledges Paris, home of Gustave Eiffel who designed part of the Statue of liberty, and recalls the music of the Jews who left Europe for the New World. One speaker in my piece mentions a relative from Transylvania, and I wanted to play the accordion slowly in this piece, because the sound carries a history or horror, both real and cinematic."
Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
"It moved to me to think about emigration to the United States from the perspectives of two English emigrants and one native New Yorker, whose ancestors fled Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
"Each voice describes a different aspect of the immigrant experience and it got me thinking how hard it can be for societies, and individuals, to marry their wide ranging notions of liberty, opportunity and identity. To stay or go, to commit to a new world or not, seemed part of all the experiences in the voices you hear in the piece. ' So the word 'um' was what I wanted to highlight. I wanted the feeling of 'um' of hesitancy and uncertainty and conflictedness, to be heard. I felt it deserved recognition. I wanted to give it music.
"I noticed how these three Americans had all known conflicted feelings in the process of making sense of their own or their families' moves. Ambivalence seemed to be missing in the Emma Lazarus poem, which has the feel of trailblazing optimism. Trailblazing doesn't always recognise the deliberating and the wondering that may go with wondering whether it was worth it. 'Um' is the word that allows us time to find our way around a sentence as we try to work out the worth of an action, or idea, or to recall our own, or another's, personal history. So I wanted to highlight the 'um' in the experiences described in my piece. The word seem to capture a feeling at large in the US today, in relation to immigration.
"I mixed in some sounds of traditional American and European instruments - harmonica, mandolin and accordion. The mandolin may sound playful and tentative, because I am finding my way round it, feeling like a new arrival when I try to play it. The first voice in my piece is an English American, living in Denver. The mandolin and harmonica remind me of the bluegrass heritage of that state.
"The accordion acknowledges Paris, home of Gustave Eiffel who designed part of the Statue of liberty, and recalls the music of the Jews who left Europe for the New World. One speaker in my piece mentions a relative from Transylvania, and I wanted to play the accordion slowly in this piece, because the sound carries a history or horror, both real and cinematic."
Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian