For choir and obbligato improviser; 
text from Lamentations 1:12 and "The Cry" by Denise Levertov, with permissions from New Directions Publishing

Commissioned & premiered by Khorikos with Charlotte Greve (alto saxophone), November 12, 2023, Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua, NYC.

The first line of Lamentations 1:12 is a question in the original Hebrew: “Is it nothing to you?” This is missed in the vulgate Latin translation into the widely spread "O vos omnes", but the question is more pertinent. Not only a call for help or pity, but implicitly a warning. Matthew Henry’s 1710 commentary puts it concisely: "Jerusalem sitting dejected on the ground calls on those that passed by to consider whether her example did not concern them. Her outward sufferings were great but her inward sufferings were harder to bear through the sense of guilt. Sorrow for sin must be great sorrow and must affect the soul.” Our sorrows now are certainly “great”, especially oriented towards a future whose imagination is inextricable from the specter of a more total destruction than ever before. Hence Denise Levertov’s poem, “The Cry,” which gives voice to that inward suffering through the very impossibility: “Nothing for eloquence / no rhetoric / fits / that unrendering” — paradoxically, it only made sense to try and work through this nothing, to sing in its face with the old and new words, to know your NOW only through what it could be, and choose accordingly with the ineffable escape route of sounds: the bird, the child, the choir, the saxophone. These real and poetic things, and the very efficacy of how they articulate themselves, are constantly shifting around uneasily over the course of this piece.

Is It Nothing

I have another site on Soundcloud: user-567048595 'Naked Tree' where I post more conventional 'songs'. Here I indulge in my interest in Ambient / Shoegaze /Jazz Fusion... and anything else that sparks my imagination. Thanks for listening.

Jack Langdon (b. 1994, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) is a musician, filmmaker, and writer with concentrations in experimental music, minimalist documentary, and cultural politics. 

Across mediums, Jack’s work stages elusive, complex encounters with commonplace subjects, scenes, and sounds. As a musician, he has created extensive work for pipe organs, and regularly performs on a variety of keyboard instruments as well as the Ojibwe wooden flute (bibigwan). His films focus on landscape, the built environment, memory, and their transmission through people. He writes on the political economy of cultural production and the workplace politics of American independent music making.

Jack has composed works for Yarn/Wire, Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Talea Ensemble, Prague Quiet Music Collective, Southland Ensemble, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Trio SÆITENWIND, Yoshi Weinberg, Jack Yarbrough, Miroslav Beinhauer, Sara Constant, Jonathan Hannau, and Graeme Shields. His work has been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the Fromm Foundation, The Awesome Foundation, MISE-EN_PLACE, and the Prague City Gallery. 

As an improviser, he has projects with Jeff Kimmel, Hunter Brown, Olivia Shortt, Taylor Ho Bynum, Adam Shead, Webb Crawford, Anthony Vine, Erica Miller, Sam Scranton, Kelley Sheehan, Ishmael Ali, and Weston Olencki.

His recordings have been released by IMPREC, Sawyer Editions, Dinzu Artefacts, and Lobby Art Records. His written work has been published by Sound American, Cacophony, and Shred Magazine. Jack is a founding editor for Culture as Care Journal with Eli Namay and John Pippen. He runs an independent record label and music journal based in Chicago called Empty Stage.

He is currently studying for his PhD in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, and holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Saint Olaf College. He is a Graduate Practicum Fellow at the Alice Kaplan Center for the Public Humanities in 2024 and 2025. 

Jack grew up in Keyeser, Wisconsin.

Composition, improvisation, instrumentalization, realizations.

https://www.youtube.com/@Thierrymfe.1010

Bienvenue ! Venez goûter ma « cuisine alchimique modale » ! Laissez-vous surprendre par des saveurs insolites, étranges, ludiques, relaxantes et toujours personnelles. Ces créations originales, musicales et graphiques, réalisées sans IA, sont le fruit d'un travail acharné et d'influences diverses. J'aime travailler en équipe avec Guillaume qui mixe et masterise, et pourquoi pas un jour partager avec d'autres artistes… ce serait un plaisir !

Welcome! Come taste my "modal alchemical cuisine"! Let yourself be surprised by unusual, strange, playful, relaxing and always personal flavors. These original, musical and graphic creations are made without AI, the result of a lot of work and diverse influences. I enjoy working as a team with Guillaume who mixes and masters and why not one day share with other artists...it would be a pleasure!

Is It Nothing

Zvibes