Forward Music Project
Live at SUNY Purchase, May 2016
Cello: Amanda Gookin
Music: "memories lie dormant, they are to be reviled before they are revealed by Morgan Krauss

"memories lie dormant: they are reviled before they are revealed (2016) is a piece that expresses what it means to be a survivor of sexual abuse/assault, I realize it is more than one should ever have to endure. One time, in any form, is too much. We are allowed to give ourselves space, self-love, and patience. We are allowed to recognize our peaks and valleys as they come. These fluctuations are all relevant. They matter and deserve to be acknowledged just as survivors matter and deserve to be acknowledged. I believe in this project and will use this duo as a platform to let other survivors know they don't have to suffer in silence nor do they have to negate their triumphs in silence. The end goal of this project is to raise awareness and hopefully push toward the social change of these issues through music and education." - Morgan Krauss

"memories lie dormant: they are reviled before they are revealed" (excerpt) by Morgan Krauss

Forward Music Project | forwardmusicproject.com
National Sawdust SPRING REVOLUTION FESTIVAL
March 1, 2017

Leila Adu: For Edna (2016)

Amanda Gookin: cello
S. Katy Tucker: projection design
Bruce Steinberg: lighting
National Sawdust: video
Michael Caterisano: sound

"When Amanda Gookin said that she’d like to participate in her women’s social justice Forward Music Project, I wanted to write a piece that encapsulated the strength of women. At first, I was going to write something physically and aurally demanding — hard. Then I realized that our strength is perseverance and endurance, adaptability and openness, and connection to others. I wrote this thinking about women loving their man who has come home from war; women who have lost their children; women who have been beaten by men, the system, or both, and who still have the strength to love. 

I dedicate this piece to my friend, activist and scholar Edna Bonhomme, because in the struggle of being a black woman from a working-class family, she perseveres to be one of the most loyal, hard-working, inspirational and devoted people I have ever met. With her Haitian background and American upbringing, she has continued to keep her heart open and share her intellect with me, including around issues of colonialism, black struggle, police brutality, the prison justice system and her tangible fears for her own family. A few years ago on my 12/12/12 birthday, Edna gave me a copy of Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, and she wrote this dedication in the front page:

"Continue to recover the voices of “other” and the marginalized and show that their music is important too."

Thank you Edna and Amanda for being part of the creative inspiration of this piece." - Leila Adu

Leila Adu: For Edna | Forward Music Project

Forward Music Project | forwardmusicproject.com
National Sawdust SPRING REVOLUTION FESTIVAL
March 1, 2017

Amanda Feery: Stray Sods (2016)

Amanda Gookin: cello
S. Katy Tucker: projection design
Bruce Steinberg: lighting
National Sawdust: video
Michael Caterisano: sound

"Stray Sods was written for cellist Amanda Gookin, as part of her Forward Music Project. Some of Forward Music Project's goals are to raise awareness of women's issues, to support the work of living composers of all backgrounds, and to discover better ways to connect a community through art. 

Amanda encouraged each of the commissioned composers to think about a female issue we would like to focus on and explore in our works. The obvious choice for me was to somehow explore the issue of reproductive rights in Ireland as part of my piece. Currently in Ireland, abortion is illegal unless it occurs as a result of a medical intervention to save the life of the mother.  When a woman's life is not considered at risk, an abortion in Ireland carries a 14 year prison sentence. Because of this, over 12 women per day travel by sea or air to the U.K to access medical care for an abortion, sometimes alone and sometimes in secrecy.

I was thinking about old folk songs and lullabies sung from the female perspective of fretting for the husband who is working at sea. There is a wealth of these mournful melodies. I felt that the act of traveling by air or by sea, alone, to another country for a procedure with associations of such sorrow, deserved its own textless melody, a lullaby-mourning song hybrid for something intangible."  - Amanda Feery