I’m back!
OK, so clearly I’m about as efficient and up-to-date with writing this blog as I am with everything else, which is to say, not very. But look, here’s a new post! By me! Koven J. Smith! Oh, yeah. The performances at the Cunningham Studio went quite well, and I only stepped on one person’s eyeglasses during the rehearsals. So overall, I would say it was a success. The new piece for Ellen took several mysterious turns in it’s relatively short gestation period, and this is how it ended up. Harry Partch instruments+hot beats+scratchy recordings=me smiling. That is the equation.
The piece ended up being called “Get This To My Mother.” My dad laughed when I told him the title, because I think he assumed that it was another typical Koven J. Smith non-sequiter. Howeva, the title actually comes from the recording that you hear throughout the piece, which is a WWII radio broadcast of transmissions from the American troops stationed at Corregidor right before the island fell to the Japanese. I’m not entirely sure how this broadcast came to be, but it sounds as if it is a broadcaster reading decoded Morse messages as they come over the wire. The sound of that, of passionate messages being read in an entirely dispassionate way, really struck me. That in the midst of unimaginable chaos, this man just wants his mother to know that he was thinking of her. It’s not really that important that you know all of this context to enjoy the piece, but knowing this certainly makes it all a little richer for me. At any rate, I hope you like the piece, and happy 5th of July!
