A return to Navona Records, MOTION STUDIES includes two major works: Justine Chen’s Shallow Breath and Stealth and Nicholas Cline’s watersheds.
Reflecting on a culture where data mining and government traceability have become normalized to the point of population complacency, Chen captures Philadelphia poet Jena Osman’s musings on the 21st-century reframing of paranoia, privacy, and the pervasive desire to run away from the data that follows us. Evidence of these reflections is present in the tittering, sometimes whispering, sometimes soaring, and often frantic utterances of the ensemble in an unnerving collection of sequences that paint an antagonistic image of the modern machine.
In Nicholas Cline’s watersheds motion is boundary rather than escape: the movement of water is a point of political power, of conservation and waste, of replenishment, and of damage and territorialism. Joined by PRISM Quartet leader Matthew Levy on tenor saxophone, The Crossing’s signature crystalline sound ebbs and flows as they sing the history of water in America, placing opposing views and theories next to each other, and yet never forgetting the simple, joyful experience of rain. Cline’s musical landscapes are gentle; they seem to carry hope and gratitude in topics otherwise causing angst and worry.
Shallow Breath and Stealth
music by Justine F. Chen
words by Jena Osman
Commissioned by The Crossing and Donald Nally.
a note from the composer, on writing Shallow Breath and Stealth:
I first heard The Crossing in 2011, when I subbed as a violinist with the remarkable new music group ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), we were all performing the American premiere of Scottish New Complexity composer James Dillons’ 3-evening multimedia extravaganza, NINE RIVERS– a piece of such extreme demands, it was dubbed “one of the most cancelled music projects of all time”. From that moment on, THE CROSSING was the sound I had in my head whenever I imagined a group of singers.
When Donald Nally showed me Jena Osman’s Poem MOTION STUDIES, I was simultaneously extraordinarily excited by the prospect of translating Osman’s dizzyingly beautiful, haunting, whimsical, and terrifying work, and deeply moved and surprised that making this work was something Donald imagined I could achieve.
In the 75-page long MOTION STUDIES, Osman combines numerous forms: essays, stories, and graphs the various ways in which data collection has evolved and affects our lives.
I was absolutely floored by the virtuosity of the text and narrative, and also immediately knew that I could not use the text as it was. MOTION STUDIES is a perfect entity as a poem, but the length would bloat with music to yield a 5 day-long oratorio.
Donald culled selections of the text, and I whittled these moments down, in an effort to capture the poem’s earnest tone of surprise and menace, an unfolding plot, and also … something like a message in a bottle sent back through time, much like Madeleine Stowe’s character’s phone message in Terry Gilliam’s remarkable movie 12 Monkeys. In Osman’s MOTION STUDIES, there is a recurring character of a bird who appears occasionally at the end of the pages in a fashion that Osman dubbed “flip book” – capturing moments at the at the edges of the pages - a delightfully whimsical element of the poem that I mimic with my recurring message in a bottle.
In order to encapsulate the essence of the playful form and the increasing menace of the data collectors, I took four sections of the text, and - with the blessing of Jena Osman - rearranged the words in the various iterations to imbue the text with different meanings, each reassembling, more menacing than the previous.
It is my greatest hope that SHALLOW BREATH AND STEALTH is worthy of Osman’s MOTION STUDIES, Donald Nally, The Crossing, and the listener.
– JFC/ STAMFORD, CT 9/2021
watersheds
music by Nicolas Cline
words by Mary Hunter Austin (1868-1934), John Muir (1838-1914), Paul Bergschneider (1901-1979), Rachel Carson (1907-1964), Charles Dana Wilber (1830-1891), Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), and from Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908)
a note from the composer:
Often those who turn to the ancient practice of divination do so not out of a belief that it will work, but that it must. A dry well is a crisis. “Water witching,” as it is known in rural America, is a way of coping with one’s environment under conditions of uncertainty and anxiety. The water witch – like the hydrogeologist – is concerned with imagining underground flows of water.
As the spaces which separate the flow of water, watersheds define the borders of this shared resource. The texts juxtapose varied and distinctly American attitudes toward water. The meditations of Muir and Thoreau convey a sense of permanence and power in water’s ability to shape and nourish the land. These observations are contrasted with the urgency that comes with too little water. Mary Austin describes the “destiny” of streams to become irrigation for crops. The Supreme Court decision known as the Winter’s Doctrine set the legal precedent for Native American water rights, citing the necessity of water for self-sufficiency. C.D. Wilber promotes the false propaganda that westward expansion would lead to increased precipitation: “rain follows the plow.” Rachel Carson warns that the health of the land, water, and all living things are inextricably bound.
Commissioned by Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music for the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble and Donald Nally. Premiered on November 5, 2018.
prelude: water-witching
wordless
I. water borders
It is the proper destiny of every considerable
stream in the west to become an irrigation ditch.
It would seem the streams are willing. They go
as far as they can toward the tillable land.
– Mary Hunter Austin from The Land of Little Rain (1903)
II. the lace-like fabric of streams
Contemplating the lace-like fabric of streams
outspread over the mountains, we are reminded
that everything is flowing
– John Muir from My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)
III. a method for finding
Witching (or switching) for water is a method for
finding sand or gravel beneath the surface of the
earth. A live stick or wire held in the hands of
some people will have a downward pull.
– Paul Bergschneider from his notes (ca. 1950)
IV. to encourage the habits of industry
this diversion of water
to which there is no adequate remedy
as water on portions of the public domain
dependent on its waters for irrigation
to encourage the habits of industry
they had command of the lands and the waters–
command of all their beneficial use, whether
kept for hunting or turned to agriculture and the
arts of civilization. Did they give up all this?
– from the Winters Doctrine 207 U.S. 564 (1908)
V. threads of the community fabric
So delicately interwoven are the relationships
that when we disturb one thread of the
community fabric we alter it all.
– Rachel Carson from “Essay on the Biological Sciences” (1958)
VI. rain follows the plow
No one can question or doubt the inevitable
effect of this cool condensing surface upon the
moisture in the atmosphere [...] A reduction of
temperature must at once occur, accompanied
by the usual phenomena of showers. The chief
agency in this transformation is agriculture. To
be more concise: Rain follows the plow.
– Charles Dana Wilber from The Great Valleys and Prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest (1881)
VII. the gentle rain which waters
the gentle rain which waters keeps me in the
house today
though it prevents my hoeing it is of far more
worth
if it should cause the seeds to rot in the ground
it would still be good for the grass
being good for the grass it would be good for
me
Mar 8, 1861
earth after rain was bare
Apr 3, 1856
almost forgotten sound of rain on the roof
May 25, 1860
the horizon the slate color of falling rain
– Henry David Thoreau from Walden, Solitude (1854) and The Journals
THE CROSSING
Katy Avery • Karen Blanchard • Steven Bradshaw • Aryssa Burrs • Abigail Chapman • Colin Dill • Micah Dingler • Meg Dudley • Ryan Fleming • Joanna Gates • Dimitri German • Dominic German • Steven Hyder • Michael Jones • Lauren Kelly • Anika Kildegaard • Kim Leeds • Maren Montalbano • James Reese • Daniel Schwartz • Rebecca Siler • Tiana Sorenson • Daniel Spratlan • Daniel Taylor
Matthew Levy tenor saxophone
Donald Nally conductor
Kevin Vondrak assistant conductor & artistic associate
Mark Livshits keyboards
Paul Vazquez sound design
Recording Producers: Paul Vazquez, Donald Nally, and Kevin Vondrak
Recording Engineer: Paul Vazquez
Assistant Recording Engineer: Codi Yhap
Editing, Mixing, and Mastering: Paul Vazquez
Album artwork by Amze Emmons – amzeemmons.com
Motion Studies was recorded November 16-19, 2021 at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
This album is made possible through the generous support of an Anonymous Donor.
We are grateful for:
our artists, composers, audience, friends, and supporters;
the staff and congregation at our home, The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill;
those who opened their homes to our artists during the recording of Sumptuous Planet: David and Rebecca Thornburgh, Jeff and Liz Podraza, Corbin Abernathy and Andrew Beck, Laura Ward and David Newmann, Dan Schwartz and Michael Rowley, Lauren Kelly and Henry Koch, Rebecca and Mark Bernstein, Steven Hyder and Donald Nally.