A half-finished puzzle spins above the whale on stage. Heavy and sweet, the kinks of its baleen feel familiar.
Katherine Balch different gravities (2023)
Different gravities is a musical take on ideas and images that have been rolling around in my head since reading Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem. In his sci-fi saga, Cixin introduces readers to many concepts in theoretical physics and astrophysics, one of which is the trilogy’s namesake—the problem of solving the motion of three gravitationally interacting bodies. Cixin’s book led me down many delightful Wikipedia rabbit holes, thinking about the way gravity looms omnipresent in my life on this planet and the fantastical number of other kinds of gravitational circumstances besides Earth’s little g. It also seemed an apt way to think about the relationships in chamber music: mutual attraction of greater or lesser strength between musicians or musical materials, the downward fall of a musical line or phrase towards some resolution, the push and pull of intonation, the logic of harmonic sequences and their obfuscation. Different gravities imagines a kind of musical planet- hopping: each movement lets musical relationships play out according to their unique ‘gravitational’ laws.
John Popham, Julia Den Boer, and Pala Garcia, for whom Katherine Balch wrote different gravities. Photo: Pascal Perich
Igor Santos Nossas Mãos (2024)
Nossas Mãos is a composition for piano trio and video, exploring the subject of hands. It examines (and praises) hands as symbols of human agency, affection, protest, and as technologies for music making.
The piece incorporates found materials, quotations, and visual references to form a mimetic cycle that constantly navigates between video, sound, and live performance, while also moving back and forth in historical time. This work, along with my other recent multimedia pieces (e.g., Water Triptych), uses found materials as a way to analyze and engage with my own mixed ethnic and cultural background and identities, while also trying to respond/react to contemporary visual and musical culture.
