50 Drawings to Assassinate Magic (2019)

Bb Clar., Bsn., C Trpt., Trmbn., Vln., Vla., D.B. (c. 4min)

Written for the Berkeley Ensemble, February 2019.

Premiered February 28, 2019 by the Berkeley Ensemble in Dora Stoutzker Hall.

A text setting for instruments, 50 Drawings to Assassinate Magic uses text from a translation of Antonin Artaud’s poem of the same name in which he describes his drawings. His words, including the crucial line “I cast about for consonances,” have been transformed into pure sound and freed from linguistic meaning — an idea borrowed from Artaud himself.