corpse song, draws upon a Margaret Atwood poem of the same name from 1974. The text was interpreted as timbral and durational material while the pitch material of the piece was derived from a recording of myself reading selected lines from the poem; 
I bring you something you do not want:  
news of your future:
 soon you will have no voice  		
(My body turned against me too soon,  		
it was not a tragedy)  		
(I did not become 		
a tree or a constellation  		
(I became this illusion, this trick of 			
ventriloquism)  
swollen with words you never said, 
 swollen with hoarded love.  
I exist in two places, here and where you are.  
Pray for me not as I am but as I am.

Clarinet: Ford Fourqurean, Tape: Ryan Muncy

corpse song | for clarinet and tape

Lisa Atkinson (b.1992) is a Chicago-based composer whose work endeavors to explore interiority through the tactile, visceral nature of live-performance and the emotional context of gesture while examining issues of fragility, memory, timbre, time, and perception.

corpse song | for clarinet and tape

Lisa Atkinson | Composer