24 May Mindmeat

Posted at 23:56h in solo/duo, works by

piano + percussion [15′] 2003.

Commissioner: Danny Tunick & Kathy Supové
Funder: Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: Danny Tunick & Kathy Supové, The Cutting Room, New York, November 5, 2003.
Text: Dennis Lee
Program note:

Poet Dennis Lee came to visit and left a blue folder on top of the piano. While plunking away at a new piece for Danny and Kathy the inevitable happened: I reached for the folder, opened it and began to read the most extraordinary sequence of poems I’d encountered in years. Like a thief in the night who turns out to be an incredible tango partner, Lee’s poems snuck into the house and danced their way into my music. mindmeat is based on four of the fifty-one poems which make up the recently published UN (Anansi Press). In the thick of an apocalyptic fug I was reminded that art can move us forward in a way that no scientific treatise or academic tome could even hope to. Thanks to Dennis for allowing me to ride the wave his poetry inspired.