The Shimmer Beneath: A Scattering Attempt, for cello duo (2019)
Recording of a reading session at the University of York, June 2021.
Gaia Blandina and Ali Baumann (The Chimera Ensemble).

This piece is part of my research on Luminance as a semantic dimension of timbre.

The Shimmer Beneath: A Scattering Attempt (2019) [reading session] | Michele Abondano

Dancing Plasma

Dancing Plasma ⚡

Afternodbeamy

Faster Than You Planned

P¶1n6ü1N∞

On May 10, 1996, three officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Tsewang Samanla, Dorje Morup, and Tsewang Paljor, were part of a six-man expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest.  Delayed and facing a storm, the three decided to disregard orders and press on while the rest of the team turned back.  Around 18:00 the climbers radioed their expedition leader back at base camp to inform that they had reached the summit.  While credited with summiting, whether they actually reached the summit or not is to this date debated.

These two songs wouldn’t exist if not for the irony surrounding the perishment of one of the climbers, Tsewang Paljor.  The irony is that Paljor became famous not in life but in death and simply because of the fact that his lifeless, frozen body, which no person or entity cared to remove from the side of the trail for at least 19 years, ended up becoming a landmark and reference point to climbers, his humanity reduced to an almost comical nickname stemming from the mountaineering boots on his feet and their bright yellowish-green color.  A Google search today of the keywords “Tsewang” and “Paljor” brings up, as the first result, a Wikipedia article entitled not “Tsewang Paljor”, but “Green Boots”.

“Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 1: Ascenso y muerte” is my reflection on Paljor’s resolve to climb, then the climb itself, then the summiting (or the thinking they had summited), and finally the descent and the exhaustion, confusion, and acceptance of defeat that probably came with it and the probable realization of impending death that frozen night as he lay curled up on his side, donning his brightly-colored mountaineering apparel, under a crevasse at the side of the climbers’ trail at 28,000 feet.

“Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 2: Fiesta en Leh” is an imagination of a summer day that Tsewang could have enjoyed as a young adult in his hometown’s capital, Leh, with friends and perhaps one or two love interests at hand.  An experience he might have remembered about during those few final minutes of his life.  

About the song names:  That isn’t me trying to be the most righteous of the lot.  Like, “look, I even include his military rank before his name, while everyone else just calls him ‘Green Boots’.”  I’m not trying to be judgmental or pretentious.  In fact, up until the last few minutes the songs were going to be called “Helado en altura 1” and “Helado en altura 2”.  “Helado en altura” translates roughly to “Ice cream at high altitude”, and is a pun because in Spanish “Helado” can also mean a frozen person, animal or thing.  So, for the cover artwork, I literally searched for frozen corpses in snow-capped mountains.  Not necessarily with those keywords.  And happened on Green Boots.  It was like the third result.  But ultimately, I felt it would be in bad taste to be so literal and use the pic and do the pun and all that.  In a way, the song titles are an atonement for my previous intentions.  And a pair of songs to honor a man who found very little dignity in death.  Some may point out the old adage that there “is no dignity in death”.  I’d say as so much else in life, that it’s a matter of degree.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and above all listen.  I hope you “get” the songs, and above all, enjoy them.  (No pun intended with “above”.)

Note:  from the information I had access to on the World Wide Web, Paljor’s body has not been officially identified or removed to this day.  However, it was last reported seen in 2015.  Its current location and state is, to the best of my web knowledge, unknown.

Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 2: Fiesta en Leh

Masonic

An ode to spring, nature's always renewed. I hope you'll ike it!

Frühling

Video can be watched here:
https://youtu.be/2FjUBiXm2wI
Greetings for all!

Wonderfull Tonight, Eric Clapton, instrumental cover

Ghost Piano - Don't Go Down There - GP Only - Kevin_Manthei

Ink tears
0tumn - 2025

Why bother with all that? I'm asking!
Take care!

Ink tears

Website: www.micheleabondano.com
Scores: https://www.babelscores.com/MicheleAbondano

Profile picture by Camilo Pachón, Stiftung Künstlerdorf 2023