Commissioned by the Albany Symphony 
Completed April 28, 2021
Premiered June 11, 2021 by David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony's Dogs of Desire

Newness was on my mind in late February 2021 when David Alan Miller asked me to write a piece for the Albany Symphony’s ‘Dogs of Desire.’ I had recently graduated from school, spring was around the corner, and slowly but surely, the world seemed to be inching toward some semblance of normalcy. It had been a long, dark winter, and there was a hesitant hope in the air even around me where I lived: some of Baltimore’s more enthusiastic cherry blossoms had begun to prematurely flower. 

I did not want to write a simple ‘spring has sprung!’ piece, however - the harsh realities of the last year would have made such an approach disingenuous for myself. Instead, I was drawn toward the beauteous ambiguities of Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi’s work. His poetry was filled with natural imagery of the seasons that he shaped into dark yet lyrical ruminations on life, death, and rebirth. 
	
		Fall - ‘...The wind that burns to ash then restores.
			The air fills with embers
			And you go with them.’ 
						- excerpted from his poem, ‘草 (Grass)’

		Winter - ‘Bloom, unbloomed - snow soon thaws (by the dawn)
			midnight snow shrouds the night...’ 
						- excerpted from his poem, ‘花非花 (Flower, no flower)’

		Spring - ‘The gate illumined by
			The sun brings the sweet taste of spring.’
						- excerpted from his poem, ‘春眠 (Spring sleep)’ 

Relatively few of Bai’s poems seemed to concern the summer, and so The Gate Illumined is shaped around his preferred seasons. The music begins tentatively, opening with a brief flurry of motion that is quickly suspended. The gesture repeats, slowly unfolding into running scales and drifting harmonies as two singers trade phrases back and forth. The two are initially opposed - one sings of desolation, the other restoration. Gradually, the music begins to shed its equivocation as its pulse solidifies into running motion. A gathering sense of optimism swells through the ensemble as the singers find agreement. Ultimately, the piece ends the way it began, culminating in the opening gesture.

Large Ensemble

The Gate Illumined, for two sopranos and sinfonietta

Kropotkin was buried in Moscow on 13th of February, 1921- barely two months after the leadership of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army in Ukraine were arrested and executed at a meeting with Red Army commanders, several years into the process of subordinating the workers' factory committees to top-down management, and just before the workers' strike in Petrograd demanding political freedoms for socialist parties and a redress of food supply grievances would lead to the Kronstadt Uprising. This winter was the last stand of the Russian anarchist movement, and it was a grim sign that in burying Kropotkin, the movement had to ask the government to release  their imprisoned comrades, and asked for permission to carry their anarchist banners and slogans critical of the state. In asking for such permission, the balance of power was already painfully clear. Anarchist prisoners, such as Aaron Baron, the co-editor of the Nabat paper in the Free Territory, were released from jail for this single day; after burying Kropotkin, they  would be interned into the prison system never to see freedom again. Others, such as Grigori Maksimov of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation of Russia, would flee in exile. Many of the architects of their demise, among the Old Bolsheviks, would themselves fall victims to the purge as their own rivals and enemies took power within the party.

Kropotkin's Funeral

arranged for and recorded by Manuel Zurria (IT)

commissioned by the WDR Cologne (Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2020)

"Unanime" for 8 bass flutes (2020)

Welcome to the unofficial Red Dead Redemption II soundtrack. This playlist contains all the ambient tracks for the Big Valley territory.

The tracks in this album have been pulled directly from the game files.

Many thanks go to Woody Jackson, the original composer of this incredible soundtrack. As always, I do not own this music in any way, nor do I make a cent from having posted it here.

Check out the other playlists I have uploaded to find the story-line tracks for the game, as well as the tracks for the many strangers that you meet in your travels.

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Territories

Big Valley Day 2a

Only love can bring us down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SAPleMnoNo&ab_channel=T%21MTimElsner

The Chameleons - The Fan And The Bellows - Cover

"Holding the Line, (Revolutionary)" is a rewrite, requested and commissioned by an organizer at the Red Pine collective in Northfield, of the song that Eugene Lerner and I co-wrote at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. While that song celebrated the resistance of ordinary people to the invasion, this song is a celebration of different revolutionary struggles around the world throughout the last century and the struggles of workers on the picket lines. The first verse celebrates the Makhnovshchina of revolutionary Ukraine and the CNT militias of revolutionary Spain, particularly the women of Mujeres Libre. The second verse is for the Zapatistas and the revolutionaries of Rojava and the rest of Kurdistan. The final verse is for all of us, reminding of us of the deadly daily consequences of allowing capitalism to continue, and of the world we hope to win and to build. 

D G D
Where the cavalry’s riding there’s partisans hiding 
D A
the  waiting in sends ice down their spine 
Bm G
but they’ve finally held land of their own in their hands 
D A D
And that’s why they’re holding the line 
Before she seized her gun, she got up ‘fore the Sun 
To sweat on the factory line 
Now She faces each dawn and vows no pasaran 
And that’s why she’s holding the line 

Chorus 
G D
We’ve seen it before, know they’d do it once more, 
G A
As they did to the people last time
Bm G
With guns, jails, and borders they impose their order
D A D
And that’s why we’re holding the line

Ever since the conquista the latifundista
Ruled over these lands and our kind
But we’ve broken their greed and weve won land and freedom 
And that’s why we’re holding the line 
The village is bright in the dead of the night
Where the flares and the rocket trails shine 
But her sisters and she in the mountains are free 
And that’s why they’re holding the line 

Chorus

Their wealth and their thrones are built over our bones 
Eating pheasant and drinking their wine 
While hunger takes toll of the kids on the dole 
And that’s why we’re holding the line 
When the struggle is won and the futures begun 
And we’ll leave not a worker behind 
We’ll share our new land and we’ll work hand in hand 
But first we must help hold the line 

Chorus 
Chorus

Holding The Line (Revolutionary)

Sometimes it all gets too much
And you lose your head 'cause you're losing touch
And you go to the moon and you dance with the stars
'Cause there's pain that remains in the scars

On Mute

are we living like in those days (instrumental)

ill-use III (2020/23) for 7 Soloists and Conductor.
Live recording, Ensemble PHACE and Nacho De Paz, Festival Contemporáneo, FIMC.
14.10.2023, Espacio la Granja, Tenerife.

ill-use III (2020/23) for 7 Soloists and Conductor l Live Recording

Performed by:
-ChimChom
-Squiggle T

Produced by:
-ChimChom

Supa Freaka (Feat. ChimChom)

Monday

Folk musician, carpenter, and anarchist. Former member of the Wooden Shoe Ramblers. 
Website: https://edoylemusic.weebly.com/
Bandcamp: https://emmettdoyle.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-ballads
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmettdoyle
WSR: https://woodenshoeramblers.bandcamp.com/releases

Kropotkin's Funeral

Emmett Doyle

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