An absurdist and metaphysical confrontation between forces of disorder, INSPIRED BY DOUBT is aggressive, lyrical, explosive and barely audible in turns and enacts a fragmented, gestural drama.
From great pitch leaps to darkening speed to slapping the piano with slack hands, the music is incessantly seeking ‘a way out’. Requiring a pianist of tremendous technique and great vision (Yevgeniy Milyavskiy), INSPIRED BY DOUBT rarely ends up where it seems to be going.

INSPIRED BY DOUBT

As I conceive it, the task of the artist is to attempt to express what it feels like to be alive in his or her own socio-historical moment.  INCLUSION itself, as a composition, is not a linear development. It is created from disparate intensities which take the form of fragments, interruptions, juxtapositions and collisions.

Here is how I conceive the materials which make up INCLUSION.

For me the extended techniques point to two facets of our experience : 
at the level of psyche they represent our inner life—thoughts, feelings, inner monologues, etc. The habitual, linear pitches represent the world outside of us. 

At the social level the crushes, wails, embouchure glisses, slaps and barely audible white noises coming from blowing air or bowing the tailpiece represent the excluded. Building them into the sonic fabric (social fabric) along with the sounds we habitually associate with the instruments inspired the title of the piece. 

INCLUSION includes and is built upon the back and forth and simultaneity  between the extended techniques and habitual sounds coming from the instruments , and this allows me the expanded palette I need for this piece.

On top of this or interwoven within the duality of habitual and inhabitual sounds, the piano—with its constant timbre—plays the role of the individual making his way through the labyrinths of inner and outer perceptual realities. The piano absorbs, intensifies, causes, deflects what is happening within and without us as the composition unfolds.

INCLUSION  seeing touching breathing for piano and orchestra

In TERRESTRIALS (2021)  for piano and violin, breaking with an anthropocentric world view, I try to offer to every life form on Earth the care, respect and devotion which they richly deserve and which are so urgently needed  for an ongoing history of the planet.

INSPIRED BY DOUBT

hugh*levick

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