FACT(IONAL) (2019)

DISPATCH FROM POST-TRUTH AMERICA, FOR BRITISH BRASS BAND

FACT(IONAL) is a frenetic piece that explores questions having to do with living in a post-truth sociopolitical landscape in 21st century America. The chromatic texture at rehearsal 140 is meant to reflect the rhetorical deluge that humans living in the information-age face daily. Major thirds (and a pair of seconds) emerge from the din in turn, suggesting a psychic/informational landscape with no center, where all rhetoric (no matter how irrational) potentially carries equal sway — a cultural condition that has perhaps been intentionally engineered by way of disinformation. In December of 2019 I had the good fortune of hearing the piece read by the incomparable Cory Band in a small church in southern Wales as they rehearsed for their upcoming Christmas concert.