"In solitude this fear is lived" [2011] For amplified voice, orchestra and "sonic atmosphere". Premiere: March 4, 2011 By American Composers Orchestra, Zankel Hall/Carnegie Hall, NYC.
"If you could live with only one piece of art, what would it be?
Agnes Martin’s minimalist works from the early to mid-1960s. I have a beautiful, well-worn and well-used catalogue from her exhibition ‘KUNSTRAUM München, 20. November – 22. Dezember 1973’ that I look at often. It sits on a shelf in my studio along with a number of art books that are important to me.
In 2011, I realized a long-held dream of composing an orches-tral work inspired by these drawings. For in solitude this fear is lived, I placed the musicians of the American Composers Orchestra around and in the audi-ence, immersing the spectators in the centre of the orchestra to create my ‘sound painting’, beginning with a wash of wind sounds (prepping the ‘canvas’), then creating the ‘drawing’ one note, one stroke, one sound gesture at a time until the living ‘painting’ was completed, breathing and soaring over the audience. It has been played only once. I would love to have it played again."
Frieze Questionnaire: Joan La Barbara (March 2016)
