Oh my word this is everything I love about music and sound

ensemble: chamber orchestra (1[picc].1.1.1-2.1.1.0-2perc-strings)
duration: 10 minutes
written: fall 2019 - winter 2020
commissioned by: Durham Symphony Orchestra
premiere: April 10th, 2022; Durham, NC

more info: http://www.robertrankinmusic.com/no-name-in-the-street

Program Note:

       Reap they the field that is none of theirs, strip they the vineyard wrongfully seized from its owner. 
                           - Job 26:4

       As a life long resident of the Raleigh-Durham NC area, I was shocked that I had never heard about the history of Durham’s Hayti District. Founded as an independent black community after the Civil War, the Hayti District operated libraries, hotels, theaters, and a hospital becoming one of, if not the first, fully self-sufficient African-American community in the United States. Hayti continued to prosper throughout the 20th century until the 1950s with the urban revitalization of Durham which constructed the Durham Freeway directly down the middle of Hayti, splitting it in two. 
	
	My work, No Name In The Street, borrows its title from James Baldwin and is, in essence, about the history of Hayti. The piece begins with a long melodic solo line in the strings (based upon spelling the word HAYTI into musical pitches). This “Hayti theme” grows and fleshes out into a broad, sweeping statement. This moment is slowly taken over by the brass and winds which begin to distort and obscure the theme. The theme, now abstracted by the winds and brass, only occasionally can be heard. The piece reaches a great climax and is abruptly cut off.  The “Hayti theme” is now heard in its most clear and intimate form played by a solo string quintet. Slowly, over time, the theme begins to get erased by the orchestra, note by note, until one solo viola is left trying to sing out.

	No Name In The Street is, more broadly, about the erasure of history and communities and the importance of keeping the past alive even when forces greater than us attempt to eliminate them. 

WUNC, the local NPR station in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina, published a magnificent investigation into the housing crisis: https://wunc915.atavist.com/where-we-live

No Name In The Street: for chamber orchestra (excerpts)

Performed by Jacqui Armbruster (voice+viola), Tim Weiss, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

Composer's Note:
Notes on Becoming is a bespoke piece of music for the wonderful violist, singer, and poet Jacqui Armbruster to showcase their inimitable artistry and creativity. The piece features text written by Jacqui and is in three parts, outlining a narrative trajectory of self-exploration and acceptance. 

-Benjamin T. Martin

Poet’s Note:

“The three poems in the piece grapple with identity in different forms. I wrote them at a time when it felt like my entire life was in a painful transition- reaching the end of my undergraduate program and wondering what was going to come next, discovering my gender identity as a non-binary person, grieving the loss of a long-term relationship and wondering who I was without it. The first words I wrote were what became the ending of the piece, “to be cut wide open/ to fade to nothing/ isn’t that something?/ to be cut wide open” and it took me until the end of this project to realize that the vulnerable transition, the “becoming”, is a beautiful place to be.”

 -Jacqui Armbruster


Text by Jacqui Armbruster (2021):

I. i am

i’ve been writing in circles, trying to connect
the fading memories that have not left me yet
i’ve been piecing together clumsy patchwork dreams remembering days i thought were evergreen

i’ve been watching the world spin reaching out for something i can hold onto

'cause i’ve been a mother and i’ve been a child i’ve been in shackles and i have run wild
i’ve been a lover and i’ve teemed with hate i’ve been so patient but i cannot wait

any longer as i watch the world spin when i don’t know where i begin
or belong

i’ve been the flowers that bloom in the spring i’ve been the snow-falling on everything
i’ve been the moon and i’ve been the sun
i’ve been the world but i cannot give one

to you, you’re a mountain that i've yet to climb
you, far ahead
as i fall behind

fall out and spill over and remember when i had so little, with nothing to spend

but now i’ve seen plenty though sometimes i’m blind oh i am becoming
and maybe one day you’ll find out who
i am
i am
I am

II. blue

i awoke to see
the morning sky opening through clouded thoughts and miles of smog
i saw blue

went downstairs for a cup hoping it could pick me up but the first sip
touched my lips

and turned them blue

and there’s birds up in the sky dropping feathers as they fly
i look for red
but instead

they’re all blue

i met a boy, he took my hand and for hours i swam
in his eyes
the darkest shade of blue

he went away in search of green promised to bring some back for me and in his place
that big, empty space
all turned blue

now i sit and watch the cars
the lovers underneath the stars and as they kiss
i reminisce
about you

and i'm trying to forget
the promises you never kept try as i might
i cannot fight
that all the world is blue

III. open

a sacred and painful unfurling of all i have kept trapped within emerging with urgency
what has always been
in front of you
boiling under the surface coming into the light
and pushing through towards endless tomorrows
where joy and sorrow
are one and it is okay
to be clumsy and to
bleed and to misstep
because being is fleeting
and beautiful

(Cadenza: "on letting go")

to be cut wide open to fade into nothing isn’t that something? to be cut wide open

Notes on Becoming (2021): for amplified voice+viola solo and sinfonietta orchestra

shit-post - dissonant city type beat with sub bass - use headphones :]

dissonance dance

Walking in the woods, with the scents of green summer leaves. You may find a lake, beautifully calm, and sunlight granules are shimmering on the surface. Sitting down nearby the lakeside, looking at the water that reflects the whole sky, clouds, mountains, everywhere. 

Time stops in your mind when the lake is bluer than the sky.

Premiered by Neave Trio
Composed by Yeeun Sim

When the Lake is Bluer than the Sky for Piano Trio (2023)

oberlin night sketches was conceived in collaboration with the clarinet and percussion studios at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

In writing this piece, I wanted to capture a walk I sometimes take in the dead of night in Oberlin, Ohio. I happen to work a second shift at a food place, so I usually get off anytime between 12:30 am and 2:30 am. During those early hours of the morning, Oberlin is completely empty: one car every 10 minutes, maybe one other person if even. It is eerily peaceful, but at the same time super-alive. You can hear your heart beat, the wind hitting the trees, raccoons scurrying across the street- in and out of the sewer, occasionally other students partying in the distance, etc. Oberlin by no means has the typical nightlife of other cities (actually quite the contrary, with very few places open after 9:00 pm and no clubs Oberlin is a little vanilla); however, to me there
is something super alive about it. The clarinetist and percussionist are in constant dialogue, and certain points in the piece have their own things to say. In sketching and preparation, I wrote a short little poem whose narrative structure the piece is designed around:

strolling through Oberlin in the dead of night,
3:00 am- not a human in sight
raccoons scurry in and out of the sewers;
back and forth across the street.
...silence becomes sound...
I can hear my heart beating...

oberlin night sketches - for clarinet and percussion

walking into the local club on a snowy winter night

Parigonyx

Premiered by Jihwan Yoon, April 14th, 2024.
Baltimore, MD

Recording edit: Yeonsuk Jung

Eternal Yellow (노랑무늬영원) for piano solo (2024)

for flute, clarinet in Bb, violin, viola, and cello

Premiered by Earspace ensemble, January 27th, 2024.
Baltimore, MD

Recording edit: Yeonsuk Jung

The Archer for mixed quintet (2023)

Four Harmonies: Reflections of Monet - for mixed quintet (2024)

i: propulsive harmony
ii: tender harmony
iii: floating harmony
iv: dancing harmony

Four Harmonies: Reflections of Monet responds to a series of paintings of Monet which I recently saw at Musée D’Orsay in Paris. The paintings were of the Rouen Cathedral and, as is typical of Monet, he painted multiple variations on the Cathedral’s façade with different hues and shadings, and he titled them various “Harmonies” depending on the colors that are primary in the painting. What struck me was not so much Monet’s characteristic cycles of paintings, but the simplistic, yet evocative titling of these as “Harmonies,” particularly since the “harmony” is what changes while the subject stays constant. In Four Harmonies, there are four continuous movements which are all based on closely related harmonic material. In this way, the constant subject is harmony in the musical sense, while the evolving contexts of each movement are treated like unfolding colors as harmonies in a visual art medium, in an effort to create different shadings and explorations of a single subject. In this way, the piece becomes an approximation of a single subject based on multiple viewpoints, angles, or perspectives, as is the case for the Monet series. 

Four Harmonies was written for and premiered by the TAK Ensemble in April 2024. Recording Engineer, David Bird.

Four Harmonies: Reflections of Monet - for mixed quintet

Composed for Alex Johnson and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon.

Recorded and engineered by Christopher Willis.

and even the wall breaks

Dreaming Flotsam

Chicago-based composer and musical collaborator.

Notes on Becoming (2021): for amplified voice+viola solo and sinfonietta orchestra

Benjamin T. Martin

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