stars from the earth stars from the stars (2019):
for amplified flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and electronics
written for Madison Greenstone and the [Switch~ Ensemble]
audio:
live recording, Harvard University: HUSEAC/Paine Hall, 2019/10/4
^ this is an uncompressed WAV file at 24-bit/48kHz; you can stream it in MP3 from SoundCloud if it's taking too long to load
---
In the fall of 2016, several U.S. diplomats working for the American embassy in Havana fell victim to what was initially described in American media as a sonic weapon supposedly devised by the Cuban government. Once that theory was dismissed for its absurdity, and in part due to a lack of evidence and the seemingly complete absence of communication between U.S. and Cuban scientists investigating the case, the explanation that circulated in the news media for several months was that cicadas on the island were so loud that they made the U.S. officials ill.
In 1978, Mercedes Sosa recorded María Elena Walsh’s song “Como la cigarra,” which became a popular protest song against the Latin American right-wing authoritarian regimes of the second half of the 20th century. “Singing to the sun like the cicada / after a year underground, / like a survivor / returning from war,” goes the chorus. In fact, most periodic cicadas spend 17 years underground as nymphs before emerging to reproduce and die.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Jakob von Uexküll discovered that a tick completely deprived of nourishment could survive in an inert state for as long as 18 years. After that time, when provided blood, the animal awoke to feed and died.
--
This piece is being played live from a different room and fed into the hall through the loudspeakers around you. The piece is the third part of a three-year-long project that culminates tonight. I am very grateful to Madison, TJ, Zach, Lauren, and Megan for making this happen.
photo looking into a little diorama i made once