This piece was developed for Project [BLANK]’s Working Title No. 4, a three-day music and arts event in San Diego. The piece was based conceptually on the story of St. Francis of Assisi’s sermon to the birds. In the legend, St. Francis delivers lines that seem to perfectly address one of my core concerns as an artist:
though ye neither spin nor sew, he has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing for yourselves and for your offspring
he feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap
your Creator loves you much, having thus favored you with such bounties
If I do not produce, am I an artist? am I worthy of love? do I even exist?
The piece then presents an overabundance of production: a tuba modified with a second bell and valves to divert air elsewhere, namely a second tuba and a custom reed-based resonator. The tubas play series of notes reminiscent of birdsong and plainchant, alternating and building in intensity to prove their worth in the eyes of their Creator.