Premiere recording by Wendy Richman as part of the (digital) 2020 Lake George Music Festival Composition Institute.

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The Acquired Inability to Escape takes as its namesake a 1991 work by conceptual artist Damien Hirst which features a desk and office chair, contained within a steel and glass cell.  To me, this imagery ties in with a more recent and loosely defined art genre coined “corporate surrealism,” which as yet is mostly internet- and meme-based.  In my piece, I wanted to explore this intersection of mundane and magical, as well as Hirst’s original themes of corporate dehumanisation and accepted servitude.

The Acquired Inability to Escape

Jonathan Wyatt (b. 1997) is a composer, conductor, and sound artist.  His work often explores relationships, connectivity, and control. He is particularly interested in making art that engages an audience from multiple perspectives, and that blurs the boundaries of form and medium.  Jonathan is influenced by a number of conceptual and visual artists, including Damien Hirst, Yves Klein, Maggi Hambling, David Shrigley, Jeff Koons, and Mike Kelley. He also draws inspiration from trap, hiphop, folk, metal, and indie rock artists.  Some of his favorite composers are Benjamin Britten, Leoš Janáček, Alfred Schnittke, and Moondog.
 
Jonathan has been a fellow at the Atlantic Music Festival, the Red Note New Music Festival, and was a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award.
 
He holds a BM from Shenandoah Conservatory, where he studied with Jonathan Newman and Dr. Natalie Draper.  Raised in a small southern Virginia town, he now lives in Brooklyn NY, and is pursuing an MM at the Mannes School of Music with Dr. David T. Little.