Name: 17. 13.8 BILLION - Nothing by Stanley Friedman
Duration: 4 min 49 s
Description: The Neanderthals chant their creation myth.

ACT IV, Scene iv: The Caesarium. Cyril and the Women return from administering Last Rites to Ammonius. Cyril is shocked and guilt-ridden by the sight of Hypatia's bloody corpse. But Peter calms the Archbishop, comparing Cyril's leadership to that of Caesar and Alexander, even Moses and Jesus. The Congregation approaches, singing Lux Aeterna. Cyril orders the removal of the body and a coverup of the murder. Theon, Orestes and the Students enter the Church, seeking Hypatia. Cyril denies any knowledge of her. But Theon discovers a charred fragment of the Ptolemeus scroll, and all realize Hypatia is dead. Her ghostly voice is heard far offstage.

HYPATIA - Act IV, Scene iv

Astounding performance by Hub New Music (4/1/2022), and special thanks to my masters thesis advisor, Dr. Yu-Hui Chang, my Yiddish professor, Dr. Ellen Kellman, Dr. James Praznik (recording), and New Music Brandeis.

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Somewhere far, somewhere far, lies a meadow in the mountains.

In this meadow, memories gather to embrace one another and come away as something new.
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"the meadow with the butter-flowers" is the fifth and final movement of Butter-lider, a setting of poems by H. Leivick, Yankev Glatshteyn, Kadia Molodovsky, and Rokhl H. Korn, four of my favorite Yiddish writers of the 20th century. However, instead of setting these texts for voice, my music accompanies recordings (graciously archived and provided by the Yiddish book Center) of the poets themselves reciting their writing. This final movement features my own text assembled from translated fragments of each of the four poems.

Through this piece, I hope to facilitate a dialogue, across artistic media, across time and space, between these writers’ unique perspectives, and my own, on what it means to make Yiddish art. I refuse to fall into the elitist and insulting narrative of “elevating” a folk tradition by bringing it into classical music spaces. Rather, I hope to participate in this living culture so that it may reach new audiences and new generations, and to offer another medium, another language, through which to tell Yiddish narratives.

the meadow with the butter-flowers

דײַן מזל זאָל לײַכטן װי די לבֿנה סוף חודש
dayn mazl zol laykhtn vi di levone sof khoydesh
may your luck shine as bright as the new moon

recording session by Evil Manners Brass Quintet
Stanley Friedman and Max Friedman, trumpets
Leander Star, horn
Ken Spain, trombone
Mark Vail, bass trombone
Mark Woodring, audio

as bright as the new moon. (2021)

The Neanderthals chant their creation myth.

17. 13.8 BILLION - Nothing

Stanley Friedman

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