A repeating choose-your-own-adventure song. What do we feel guilty about when we grieve?

The Art of Disappearing is a song cycle meditating on the nature of grief. Slowly transforming from stasis - where is everything is arresting and alien - grief doesn't leave. It becomes an important and empathetic part of us, as we learn to move again.

The fifth portrait album from Sydney composer, Cameron Lam, weaves together the timbre and expressive depth of mezzo soprano Jenny Duck-Chong (Halcyon) and the vibrant connection of the Geist String Quartet to paint a delicate response to the rhythmic and intensely musical poetry of Sarah Holland-Batt's first book, Aria.

Lyrics:
How could he bear that golden weight?
How could he wander the small villages singing,
leading the slow consoling eyes of the goats
and the slumberous herdsmen to the place
where nothing enters or falls, and even the simplest
beauty endures? How could he go out crying
"my love is dead" in a world where surely everything
was her, and her? In the end, Orpheus did not sing
for love. He sang for the instant he forgot
who he was and had been, for those few notes
shining shapelessly above the strings.
credits
from The Art of Disappearing, released May 28, 2019
Composer: Cameron Lam
Poet: Sarah Holland-Batt

Mezzo soprano: Jenny Duck-Chong (Halcyon)
Geist String Quartet:
Violin I - Sonia Wilson
Violin II - Mia Stanton
Viola - Hayasa Tanaka
Violoncello - James Larsen

Audio Engineer and Producer: Jayson McBride
Cover Art: Luke Moseley
Record Label: Kammerklang

Enduring Ritual (from The Art of Disappearing)

Cameron Lam - Composer