At Which Point
Wang Lu’s work, At Which Point, from which the album gets its name, anchors the recording with its hauntingly beautiful settings of poems of Pulitzer laureate Forrest Gander; the theme is grief, and the sound world is simultaneously stark and lush – a kind of extended choral recitative that employs sparely-used looping and extended techniques in the most intimate of ways.
Tawnie Olson’s Beloved of the Sky is focused on revered Canadian artist Emily Carr, whose writings grapple with everything from artistic process to ‘idea’ to color experimentation, as she engaged words to affirm her value in the midst of a lonely and eccentric life. Accordingly, Olsen’s music does the same, evolving from imagination to rumination to melancholy.
Ayanna Woods’ Infinite Body leads with an examination of the effects of capitalism and marketing on our self-perspective, often driven by the expectation of productivity: “What do you do?” At times exhilarating and hyper-rhythmic, at others, calm and laid back, the work ends in a blaze of sunshine celebrating love.
An album about art. About grief. About surviving our culture.
Infinite Body
words and music by Ayanna Woods
Commissioned by The Crossing and Donald Nally as the inaugural Resident Composer composition at The Crossing (2022-2023), with generous support provided by Peter and Judy Leone; and by Carnegie Hall.
a note from the composer:
Infinite Body is born out of a fascination with the visible and invisible systems that shape our lives—in particular, how capitalism asks us to relate to our bodies, versus what our bodies have to say. Structured as an emergent and shifting sonic kaleidoscope, Infinite Body peers through the lenses of the natural world, burnout culture, and embodiment to observe and unsettle the notion of our separateness.
1. Infinite Growth
Growing
Rising a flower is an arc!
Going a flower is an arc!
round revolving all the way round
Growing
Winding a bloom is an arc!
Opening a bloom is an arc!
out exhaling all the way out
all all along wandering
all all the long wandering
all all the rigid striving, softening
Slowing
Finding the soil is an arc!
Falling the soil is an arc!
down break all the way down
all all along wandering
all all the long wandering
all all the rigid striving, softening
2. One Body
maximize your down time!
maximize your energy!
maximize your productivity!
turn into a better you!
turn your down time
into—turn your down
time into—turn your
down time into—turn
your down time into—
productivity is the life-
blood, the backbone, the teeth
of the wheel, critical
to the health of
the business—consider it one body!
3. Do Be Do
So, what do you do?
Do you worry about falling short?
You know the way water falls;
isn’t it beautiful—dropping the dew?
Couldn’t you do that too?
So, what are you working on?
Is it a lot alone?
You know the way wind is working;
see how the leaves receive it, can you believe it?
Couldn’t you leave it, be?
4. Golden Hour
My love, our time
on Earth is made
of sunlight.
Though we harden like snowflakes
in the cold, we come to each other
again in stillness, giving
ourselves into the shimmering
pool of one another.
My love, our time
on Earth is made
of sunlight—and you,
beaming at me
golden.
At Which Point
music by Wang Lu
words by Forrest Gander
Commissioned by The Crossing and Donald Nally. Premiered outdoors at Awbury Arboretum, Germantown, Philadelphia in June 2021 with Echoes Amplification Kits.
At which point my grief-sounds ricocheted outside of language.
Something like a drifting swarm of bees.
At which point in the tetric silence that followed
I was swarmed by those bees and lost consciousness.
At which point there was no way out for me either.
At which point I carried on in a semi-coma, dreaming I was awake,
avoiding friends and puking, plucking stingers from my face and arms.
At which point her voice was pinned to a backdrop of vaporous color.
At which point the crane's bustles flared.
At which point, coming to, I knew I'd pay the whole flag-pull fare.
At which point the driver turned and said it doesn't need to be
your fault for it to break you.
At which point without any lurching commencement,
he began to play a vulture-bone flute.
At which point I grew old and it was like ripping open the beehive with my hands again.
At which point I conceived a realm more real than life.
At which point there was at least some possibility.
Some possibility, in which I didn't believe, of being with her once more.
–”Beckoned” from Be With by Forrest Gander (New Directions Publishing, 2018).
What closes and then
luminous? What opens
and then dark? And into
what do you stumble
but this violet
extinction? With
froth on your lips.
8:16 a.m. The morning's
sleepy face
rolls its million
eyes. Migrating flocks
of your likesame species
incandesce
into transparency.
A birdwatcher lifts
her binoculars. The con-
tinuous with or without
your words
situates you here
(here (here)) even while
you knuckle your eyes
in disbelief. Those
voices you love (human
and not), can you
hear their echoes
hissing away like
fiery scale
from an ingot hammered
on some
blacksmith's anvil?
And behind those
voices, what is that
blowing
the valves of your ears open
as black rain,
not in torrents, but
ceaselessly comes
unchecked out of everywhere
with nothing
to slacken it.
–”The Sounding” from Be With by Forrest Gander (New Directions Publishing, 2018).
Beloved of the Sky
music by Tawnie Olson
words by Emily Carr
Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for The Crossing, the BYU Singers, and Seraphic Fire, completed while in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award.
a note from the composer:
Although she is not well known in the U.S., artist and author Emily Carr (1871-1945) is a Canadian icon. She spent most of her life in Victoria, British Columbia, where she created rapturous, ecstatic paintings inspired by the landscapes and indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. “Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky” (1935) is one of her most famous paintings. It shows an impossibly tall pine, alone in the midst of a clear-cut, haloed by light and clouds. Like many others, I see this painting as a kind of self- portrait of the lonely, eccentric, brilliant artist, her way of affirming her own value in the face of a lifetime of hurt, misunderstanding, and rejection.
As I read through Carr’s journals, I was particularly struck by her descriptions of the creative process. Waking up in the morning with a fresh idea, struggling with the discouraging lies that a creative block fomented in her brain, catching her breath as she discovers the image she’s looking for, becoming totally absorbed in a quiet day of steady work; I think these are experiences that most of us can relate to, in some form, to some degree. I set these texts because I wanted to explore and celebrate the creative process and the search for “beauty,” however defined. And because when I went down deep into myself, I found that they rang true.
1. I went down deep
I went down deep into myself and dug up. (June 24, 1937)
2. I woke with this idea…
I woke with this idea. Try using positive and negative colours in juxtaposition. Complementary are negative to positive. Try working in complementaries; run some reds into your greens, some yellow into your purples. Red-green, blue-orange, yellow-purple. (Feb. 7, 1934)
3. Oh, that lazy, stodgy, lumpy feeling
Oh, that lazy, stodgy, lumpy feeling when you want to work and you're dead! Is it liver, I wonder, or is it old age, or just inertia, or something from which the life has gone forever, that just belongs to youth? (Jan. 11, 1931)
4. The subject means little
The subject means little. The arrangement, the design, colour, shape, depth, light, space, mood, movement, balance, not one or all of these fills the bill. There is something additional, a breath that draws your breath into its breathing, a heartbeat that pounds on yours, a recognition of the oneness of all things. (Jan. 17, 1936)
God, God, God! Oh, to realize so completely that you could utterly let go and passionately throw your soul upon the canvas. (Jan. 29, 1934)
5. I made a small sketch
I made a small sketch and then worked a larger paper sketch from it. The woods were in quiet mood, dreamy and sweet. No great contrasts of light and dark but full of quiet flowing light and fresh from the recent rain, and the growth full, steady and ascending. [ ... ] "This is thine hour, O soul, thy free flight into the wordless." (Sept. 7, 1933)
– words of Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007, pp. 48, 85, 138, 139, 293, 389.
THE CROSSING
Carl Alexander 1 W • Isobel Anthony O • Katy Avery W • Nathaniel Barnett W O • Jessica Beebe W • Steven Berlanga W • Kelly Ann Bixby 5 O • Karen Blanchard O • Steven Bradshaw O • Aryssa Burrs 2 W • Colin Dill O • Micah Dingler O • Ryan Fleming W O • Joanna Gates W O • Michael Hawes W O • Steven Hyder W O • Michael Jones 3 W • Lauren Kelly W O • Anika Kildegaard W O • Chelsea Lyons O • Victoria Marshall W • Elijah McCormack W • Jenna Hernandez McLean W • Maren Montalbano 3 W O • Daniel O’Dea O • Olivia Prendergast O • James Reese W • Daniel Schwartz W O • Thann Scoggin W O • Rebecca Siler 3 W O • Tiana Sorenson W O • Daniel Spratlan W O • Elisa Sutherland 4 O • Daniel Taylor W O
W = singer on Woods, Wang
O = singer on Olson
1 solo “Infinite Growth”
2 solo “Do Be Do”
3 solo “Golden Hour”
4 solo “Beloved of the Sky” Mvts 1, 4
5 solo “Beloved of the Sky” Mvt 5
Donald Nally conductor
Kevin Vondrak assistant conductor
John Grecia company keyboardist
Ryan Fleming & Lee Hagon-Kerr additional keyboardists
Paul Vazquez sound designer
Recording Producers: Paul Vazquez, Donald Nally & Kevin Vondrak
Recording Engineer: Paul Vazquez
Assistant Recording Engineers: Christopher Vazquez & Codi Yhap
Editing, Mixing, and Mastering: Paul Vazquez
Album artwork by Elizabeth Haidle – https://www.docucomix.com/
Infinite Body was recorded September 12, 2023 at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pennsylvania, with additional recording December 19, 2023 at Articulate Studios, Bloomsbury, NJ.
At Which Point was recorded September 13, 2023 at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
Beloved of the Sky was recorded December 20, 2023 at Articulate Studios, Bloomsbury, NJ.
This album was made possible through the generous support of Carol Westfall.
We are grateful for:
our artists, composers, audience, friends, and supporters;
the staff and congregation at our home, The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill;
Rebecca Siler, Steven Hyder, and Heidi Kurtz, providers of great meals;
the generosity of Jim Cotter, offering accommodations, studio space, and sage advice;
those who opened their homes to our artists during the premiere and recording of At Which Point: David and Rebecca Thornburgh, Jeff and Liz Podraza, Corbin Abernathy and Andrew Beck, Lauren Kelly and Henry Koch, Rebecca and Mark Bernstein, Steven Hyder and Donald Nally.