Vasco Mendonça

Softcover Terrance Hayes'' series of sonnets is an extraordinary collection of poems: his poetry captures the spiralling social and political chaos in America (and the world) in a way no newspaper article or scholarly essay has been able to; his words have the rare quality of clarifying a collective feeling that is messy and confusing, an elusive and disturbing combination of fear, hope, perhaps despair. I have never personally experienced (and probably never will) the reality Hayes writes about: the oppression, danger and ambiguity he reflects upon are alien to my own experience. But I nevertheless felt compelled to create something inspired by his words. To engage - how can you not engage? The first movement of A Box of Darkness with a Bird in its Heart is a hurtful ostinato with an uneven, organic pulse - not unlike the way we breathe under physical or emotional strain. The second is a quiet, delicate birdsong; its very high melody almost a secret that''s unwillingly shared - followed by an expressive lament. The ending in the low register brings me the image of a viola da gamba played outside in a warm summer night, a distant tale of violence and loss. In the final movement the energy picks up, in a relentless and unforgiving mechanism of pizzicati. This piece was written for the wonderful violinist Diana Tishchenko, and is dedicated to her. (Vasco Mendonca)Softcover Terrance Hayes'' series of sonnets is an extraordinary collection of poems: his poetry captures the spiralling social and political chaos in America (and the world) in a way no newspaper article or scholarly essay has been able to; his words have the rare quality of clarifying a collective feeling that is messy and confusing, an elusive and disturbing combination of fear, hope, perhaps despair. I have never personally experienced (and probably never will) the reality Hayes writes about: the oppression, danger and ambiguity he reflects upon are alien to my own experience. But I nevertheless felt compelled to create something inspired by his words. To engage - how can you not engage? The first movement of A Box of Darkness with a Bird in its Heart is a hurtful ostinato with an uneven, organic pulse - not unlike the way we breathe under physical or emotional strain. The second is a quiet, delicate birdsong; its very high melody almost a secret that''s unwillingly shared - followed by an expressive lament. The ending in the low register brings me the image of a viola da gamba played outside in a warm summer night, a distant tale of violence and loss. In the final movement the energy picks up, in a relentless and unforgiving mechanism of pizzicati. This piece was written for the wonderful violinist Diana Tishchenko, and is dedicated to her. (Vasco Mendonca)

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