June 24, 2020. For black violinists. 

The pitch set for the motif of this work is:
A C# A B

This piece is a personal investigation of what living through these past months has felt like. At the best times, I’m calmly uneasy and nervous about the news I’m being accosted with - without any trigger warnings.

Then there are intermediated difficult days when you decide to risk getting sick or police harassment to go march. The rhythm of the chants old and new circling and engulfing you.

“What do we want?
Justice!
When do we want it?
Now!
If we don’t get it? Shut it down!
If we don’t get it? Shut it down!
If we don’t get it?
Shut. It. Down!”

I use this chant rhythm combined with the pitch set A C# A Bb, building activity in the violin - allowing the violin to chant with the global protests as well.

On the worst days, it feels like choking on sirens. A moment of overpressure harmonics represents generations of trauma groaning back to the surface whenever we’re killed. I pitch-matched the cop cars here in Brooklyn to get the pitch material for the following glissandi. Then sing the Black National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at the same time. The difficulty here is high, and intentionally so.

Still there has been beauty because of all this: monuments being torn down, unified global protests - all illustrating the verse I keep singing:

“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the roaring sea.”

But to just end on the anthem feels... inappropriate. There’s an ever growing list of names of black people who will never lift their voice again.
We’re still being killed. So I glitch and strangle the self made chorus with my Kaoss pad, until finally all voices flatline.

Because this ending feels more realistic.