Description
“From a Crack in the Wall” (2012) was written for and dedicated to Escape 2 Create, 2012, and was premiered while in residency. The work is inspired by poems written by Japanese women poets, with dates ranging from the 10th to the 16th centuries, who centered on sounds heard in nature and appreciated as aesthetically meaningful, and including as well the silence of a sound, which indirectly suggests the sound itself. These poems were also composed in the context of a traditional natural sound that may not be mentioned directly. These womenn were highly respected, Princess Shikishi, a royal Shinto priestess, strongly influenced by Buddhism, Chiyo-ni, a Pure Land Buddhist nun, a very liberated, independent woman, Otagaki Regetsu, tained in martial arts, acclaimed as a waka poet, as well as a calligrapher and potter, and a Buddhist nun, Michitsuna no Haha, the poet develops enlightened connections that leap beyond the finite place of where a sight or a sound resides, the finger cymbals, representing temple bells, and the clarinet imitates the Japanese shakuhachi flute. In “From a Crack in the Wall”, the clarinet imitates a rubbed sound, such as with kaydids with specialized organs which make a sound when rubbed together. Many objects were also found nature, for example, the rainstick, a wooden tube encasing cactus needles, used in “Each Time the Shower Returns,” implying rain.
–Lori F. Ardovino
Additional score included.
