caution // please // watch your step (2021)
for flute, alto saxophone, viola, percussion, and recorded sounds
Premiered as a part of So Percussion's Summer Institute 2021
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program note:
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As I was writing this piece, I was thinking about the current moment: this transition from life in an intense pandemic experience to an uncertain future. For me this transition has created an extreme level of anxiety – what does it look like to return to “normal” life? How does that exist while a pandemic continues to rage? Even if it slows, how can we move on after experiencing the trauma of the past year?
Part of this anxiety for me was thinking about travel – specifically airports – and I arrived at the metaphor of a moving walkway. For the past year time has marched on, and we’ve been pushed along, unable to choose direction or to slow down. We’ve been stuck on this path, stagnated in our own lives yet swept forward, isolated from our communities. Now, we’re being thrust towards a transition, a threshold. Whether we like it or not, things are changing. We have to adapt and figure out how to exist in a changed world. We have to relearn how to move forward of our own accord.
And it’s terrifying. There’s still so much uncertainty, so much grief and trauma that has occurred in the past year. It’s unnerving to just decide to move on, to walk outside and act as if nothing has changed. But everything has changed. We have changed.
There’s a sense of misalignment that I’ve noticed – within our personal experiences, as well as between the experiences of different people. There’s a sense of disconnect in the way we’re approaching this transition. These concepts of misalignment, disconnect, isolation, and anxiety are ideas I’ve worked to convey and explore musically in this piece.
I don’t want to assume that everyone has had the same pandemic experience I have – for me the anxiety, uncertainty and fear have been a primary force in shaping my daily existence. So, instead I invite you to consider any time you have felt lost, unstable, or desperate, and let those experiences color your listening of the piece.
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Contact Erika for score inquiries.
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