Chicago Composers Orchestra
Allen Tinkham, conductor
St. James Cathedral
Chicago, IL
April 29, 2023

If you’re wondering what electroclash artist Casey Spooner could possibly have to do with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and his song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn, then compare some of the text of “Das Himmlische Leben”, one of the Wunderhorn songs:

"We revel in heavenly pleasures,
So we shun all that is earthly,
No worldly turmoil
Is heard in Heaven,
Everyone lives in sweetest peace;
We lead an angelic existence,
And yet we are perfectly happy,
We dance and leap,
We skip and sing,
Saint Peter in Heaven looks on…” (trans. Richard Stokes)

…to some of “Butterscotch Goddam”, a 2018 song by Fischerspooner (Casey Spooner’s old band):

“I jump off the mountain, I hang off the cliff 
Listen to you shower sing love scene shift 
Light it up with your weedy spliff 
Lovers tiff, dance around, plead the fifth 
Kiss me…” 
“I brought you sake and plums from Kyoto 
Gift shop stickers from the Bishōnen show… 
And that is just one idea of heaven…”

I find “Butterscotch Goddam” difficult to describe as anything other than an alternate queer universe - the near-nonsense lyrics, the dystopian erotic imagery and sexuality of the music video. And I’m reasonably sure St. Peter and the other saints in the Wunderhorn text - St. Cecilia, St. Martha, St. Ursula - wouldn’t exactly be the biggest fans of Fischerspooner’s work, of disco or electroclash music. But both of these texts are making the same fundamental promise: an escape to paradise.

I know I’m not only speaking for myself when I say that LGBTQ people, no matter what their sexuality or gender identity, struggle to feel safe in the world today. This fear comes from atrocities past and present, such as the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL in 2016 and the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting in 2022, or arson attacks on New Orleans gay bars in the early 1970s. But it also comes from ongoing threats, like the right wing moral panic surrounding transgender people today, and over four decades of HIV/AIDS. "One idea of heaven" is an attempt to create a joyous inward retreat from a disjunct, nightmarish reality of violence, hatred and chaos, one where music and imagery as incompatible as “Das Himmlische Leben” and “Butterscotch Goddam” can coexist as they provide the escapes they both promise.

one idea of heaven (2023)

Andrew McManus’ (b. 1985) orchestral work Strobe, premiered in 2014 by the New York Philharmonic, was called “riveting” and “breathless…surging…hazy…sometimes all at once” by the New York Times. His 2021 work "Quiet Down" for 4 players and electronics draws on a recording of LGBTQ activist Silvia Rivera's iconic 1973 speech. "Whatchya Got (Sweet Water prints)" (2021) for the Chicago Composers Orchestra, works with the “freedom, sentience, joy and mourning” assembled in a “lockdown print” by artist Michelle Nordmeyer. "Embers, fused to ash" (2015), for Alarm Will Sound, amalgamates Richard Wagner’s “Magic Fire Music” from Die Walküre with other fire-based imagery. In 2014 he began "Neurosonics", a multi-work collaboration with University of Chicago neuroscientist, which creates electronic soundscapes using data from experiments used in the study of epilepsy. The project was supported by residency awards at the Aaron Copland House (2018) and the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (2018). New Music USA funded the project’s second work, "pathways, bursting [neurosonics 2]" for string quartet and electronics, which places the Spektral Quartet amidst a sea of alternately violent and tender spatialized sounds. Pathways was the winner of the 2020 Charlotte New Music & Beo String Quartet Competition. Other organizations that have featured his work include Latitude 49, NYCEMF, eighth blackbird, Fort Worth Opera, Aspen Music Festival, SPLICE Institute, New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2020 he was Limited Term Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Georgia. He is based in Chicago.

one idea of heaven (2023)

andrewemcmanus