This work can be conceptualized as 40 minutes of divination channeled through musical performance on Harp, Classical Guitar, Baroque Recorder, Meantone Organ, & 3 voices. These musical messages manifested in a large dimly lit cavernous chapel. Instrumentalists were guided by a visual score comprised of public domain images, and a 4-Channel fixed media track composed from digital audio samples of harp, rain, singing bowls, and voice. These guiding forces were inspired by tarot, a visual divinatory practice, and Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening, a sonic meditation practice. The piece unfolded as the sun set in celebration of the first day of Spring, the Worm Moon, and Purim on March 20th, 2019. The piece began with an original arrangement of Vashti Bunyan’s Hebridean Sun. Drawing upon the idoms and orality of folk music, Vashti’s work became the harmonic, scriptural, and thematic ingredients for our sonic ritual. The lyrics, our chosen incantation, describe the coming of spring, with disinct references to the Tower, a Major Arcana Tarot card often symbolizing change and revelation:
Travelling towards a Hebridean Sun
To build a white tower in our heads begun
The grass knows
The hills know
We all know
Spring has come
The good fountain flows..
The work moves through various modal-melodic behaviors, and microtonal sonorities. The piece flows towards a meantone Climax in a pure C# Major chord— a portal into a higher plane of being. The piece then drops into spiraling birdsong on Baroque Recorder. Shortly after, invisible voices emerge from the speakers. These are the voices of mischevious elves. The elves sing and babble amidst the warbling of sonic-loops. Each loop was previously divined on my loop-pedal (my magic mirror). The piece ends full circle, with Vashti Bunyan’s Hebridean Sun and a passionate recorder solo.
Fixed Media Track
Poster by Katarina Mazur
4-Channel Fixed Media, Harp, and Voice : Katarina Mazur
Harp : Anya Garipoli
Baroque Recorder : Peter Lim
Classical Guitar : Julia Bodain
Voice : Jennifer Caicedo
Voice : Eva Shappard
Harp : Anya Garipoli
Baroque Recorder : Peter Lim
Classical Guitar : Julia Bodain
Voice : Jennifer Caicedo
Voice : Eva Shappard